Podcast: Inside Rousseff’s Trip to New York to Decry a ‘Coup’
Also available for download for Apple iOS and Android. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is visiting New York in a dramatic attempt to convince the international community that she is victim of a “coup d’état without weapons.” Providing an insider’s view of this strategy to save her presidency is Matias Spektor, a professor of international relations … Read more
Podcast: Cardoso Says Impeachment ‘Not a Happy Day … But It Was Necessary’
Also available for download through the App Store and on all Apple devices. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president of Brazil from 1995 to 2002 and still an important leader of the opposition, defends the decision by Congress to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. Speaking with AQ editor-in-chief Brian Winter late Sunday as the final votes were being cast, Cardoso … Read more
Jair Bolsonaro: Pro-Torture, Anti-Gay and Brazil’s Future President?
Brazil’s outspoken Jair Bolsonaro has a widening path to the presidency, posing a growing concern to the LGBT community.
Podcast: Rousseff Won’t Go Quietly, Even If She Loses Impeachment Vote
Also available for download through the App Store and on all Apple devices. Even if she loses Sunday’s impeachment vote, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is likely to keep fighting for her job, says one of the people who knows her best. Thomas Traumann, a political analyst who until 2015 was Rousseff’s spokesman, explains why investors … Read more
This Week in Brazil Podcast: Brazil’s ‘Que Se Vayan Todos’ Moment
Also available for download through the App Store and on all Apple devices. Is Brazil facing a “lost decade” from dual political and economic crises? AQ’s editor-in-chief Brian Winter answers this question in the latest episode of AQ’s new podcast, This Week in Brazil. After a reporting trip to Brazil this past week, Winter concluded that if there’s … Read more
Impeachment and Brazil’s ‘Que Se Vayan Todos’ Moment
Leia em Português When Argentina’s economy collapsed in late 2001, everybody was absolutely sure whose fault it was. Aloof, hermetic and increasingly prone to slurring his words in public, President Fernando de la Rúa had managed to trash the government’s fiscal accounts in just two years in power. Steakhouses and nightclubs were empty, unemployment was … Read more
This Week in Latin America: Brazil’s Government Breakup
Sign up here to get This Week in Latin America delivered to your inbox every Monday. PMDB Decision on Rousseff: It is considered “inevitable” that Brazil’s largest political party, the PMDB, will on Tuesday formally break with the government and support the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. One party leader tweeted “On Tuesday the 29th, the party will decide to … Read more
The Simple Anti-Zika Trick You Won’t See in Brazil
To combat the spread of the Zika virus, Brazil has zapped male mosquitoes with gamma rays, rolled out cyber mosquitos and smartphone apps, released genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild, and deployed nearly 250,000 troops to spray insecticides and add larvicides where mosquitoes lay eggs. Indeed, Brazilian authorities seem willing to do almost anything to curb Zika’s expansion. Just don’t ask them … Read more
The Endgame of Brazil’s Crisis: Four Things to Watch
After one of the most eventful 24 hour periods in Brazilian history, the crisis threatening President Dilma Rousseff appears to have entered its endgame. For those trying to handicap the odds of her impeachment, or simply struggling to make sense of it all, here are four things to watch in coming days: 1. The … Read more
Moody’s: Lula Appointment Could Spell End of Fiscal Adjustment in Brazil
Brazil’s political crisis is moving at such intense speed that it’s hard for even dedicated analysts to keep up. AQ’s editor-in-chief spoke on Tuesday with Moody’s ratings agency’s chief analyst for Brazil, Samar Maziad, about how the changes in Brasilia are affecting the economy. At the time, there were rumors that former President Luiz Inácio … Read more
The Key to Rousseff’s Future – And Maybe Brazil’s, Too
After more than a decade studying Brazil, there are still two things whose popularity I cannot fully explain: bacalhau and the PMDB. The former is a vile salted codfish that no human being should ever be forced to ingest. The latter is the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, a shape-shifting, ideologically diverse group of politicians that … Read more
Don’t Let Brazil Become Venezuela
This piece was updated on March 7. The next week will be critical to the future of Brazilian democracy. The temporary detention of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for questioning related to the Petrobras probe is indeed a sign that no one in Brazil is above the law. But it also brings the … Read more
News Quiz: Did It Happen in Brazil or “House of Cards?”
A special thanks to Nexo, which first published this piece in Portuguese. “House of Cards” has inspired a political science class in Chile, the meme #CasadeNaipes in Argentina, and the parody “House of Narcs” in Mexico. But Netflix’s political series has hit a special nerve in Brazil. President Dilma Rousseff is fending off record-low popularity … Read more
The Brilliant Names of Brazil’s Anti-Corruption Operations: A Guide
This piece was updated on March 7. Operação Lava Jato, or “Operation Car Wash,” isn’t the only odd-sounding police sting to make waves in Brazil in recent years. Here are some of the names and stories behind the country’s most scintillating anti-corruption busts: Operação Lava JatoIn March 2014, a Brazilian currency exchanger named Alberto Youssef was caught … Read more
Brazil’s Historic Corruption Probe May Be at Risk
To date, President Dilma Rousseff has done a mostly admirable job of handling the historic corruption probe underway in Brazil. Even as the investigation of graft at state-run oil company Petrobras drew closer to her inner circle, and threatened to culminate in her impeachment, Rousseff allowed federal police and prosecutors to do their work with … Read more
