Brazil may become the last in a long list of countries to restrict legal access to abortion. However, the consequences here would be devastating for girls aged below 14, who represent more than 60% of victims of rape.
Source: FOLHA DE S. PAULO
Founded in 1921, the “Sao Paulo Gazzette” became Brazil’s leading daily in the 1980s
by applying standards of openness and objectivity to its coverage of the country and
Latin America as a whole.
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — Barbarism has actually become popular in the Philippines. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 78% of Filipinos support the “license to kill” President Rodrigo Duterte has given the police against those accused, or even just suspected, of dealing or consuming drugs. The government proudly announced the death […]
SERTÃOZINHO — In a simple house here, 330 kilometers northwest of São Paulo in Brazil, Glauber Pereira Souza, 36, is the head of a four-legged family: He owns five dogs, two cats and two rabbits. The youngest member of his household is Preta, a mongrel female who had been run over by a bus, but […]
-OpEd- In his account of the 1985 earthquake, which killed between 6,000 and 30,000 people (there are no precise figures) and destroyed more than 800 buildings in Mexico City, Carlos Monsiváis, one of the country’s greatest writers, described what he saw as the “emergence of civil society.” At the time, Monsiváis, who died in 2010, […]
-Analysis- SAO PAULO — The idea of economic planning dominated the imagination of 20th-century economists. Unlike the classical liberal view, the planning concept supports clear government intervention in the spontaneous course of markets. By implementing one plan or another, the theory goes, governments can speed up a process or correct a wrong course. Plans are […]
The answer from Chinese professionals may surprise you…
The West is in relative decline, especially compared to Asia, but no obvious alternative ‘system’ has emerged.
João Lourenço succeeds José Eduardo Dos Santos, who ruled with an iron fist since 1979. But Dos Santos has been busy keeping his hands on the levers of power.
Millions drive past the favela of Vila Esperança, with its rampant unemployment and open sewers. But thanks to a three-meter high concrete wall, they don’t see it.
RIO DE JANEIRO — “Stray bullets invading Rio’s schools.” “Under threat, schools are closing.” “Students injured in shooting.” These were titles of articles published by Folha de S. Paulo, respectively in 1996, 2003 and 2006. But they would fit in well with the current outbreak of violence in Rio de Janeiro. Of the first 100 […]
Why we should force the powerful to submit to psychological and neurological examinations on a regular basis.
It is the nature of the job, not the people who occupy it, that is ultimately to blame for an endless series of scandals at the top ranks of Brazilian politics.
High ticket prices and fancy stadiums are making the games of the national pastime off-limits for most of Brazil’s population.
-Essay- Does anyone even read Henry David Thoreau anymore? Today, July 12, marks the 200th anniversary of the American poet and philosopher’s birth. And much is being said and written about him — not all of it flattering. His work is “anecdotal,” some say. Or “irrelevant,” “juvenile” even. To answer the initial question, I do. […]
-Analysis- The recapture of Mosul by the Iraqi armed forces, with the support of the international coalition led by the United States, is a real achievement. ISIS has seen its biggest military conquest reversed, and its dream of an Islamic caliphate destroyed. But none of this means that the biggest terror organization the world has […]
-Analysis- SAO PAULO — The G20, the club gathering the world’s biggest economies, is the offspring of two crises. First, the 1997 Asian financial crisis led to the creation of the group in 1999, as an annual summit for finance ministers and central bank governors. Their objective back then was to coordinate policies to stabilize […]
-OpEd- Can you be a Christian and a politician? I’m not talking about a fundamentalist who would seek to apply Biblical precepts across all of society. I’m talking about a “moderate” Christian, one who knows how to distinguish between the moral principles that rule his life and the secular values that rule the life of […]
A pulsing, hazy world comes to life every night in Brazil’s largest city, as drug traffickers and users gather to buy, sell, barter, smoke. When police intervene, a new neighborhood is found.
A new study found that dozens of São Paulo women infected with Zika gave birth to babies without Microcephaly. Researchers are trying to trace the difference in the effects of the disease in different regions.
Restaurants are places for eating, not genuflection.
Even as Brazil’s current president Michel Temer is facing corruption allegations, his nemesis and former president Lula was in court last week on bribery charges that he aims to use as a weapon in a possible return to power.
SÃO PAULO — In the nearly two years since it was formed, Unicorns FC, an amateur soccer team in São Paulo made up exclusively of LGBT players, only recorded one crisis: when a player, disappointed with a teammate’s performance, said “soccer is a man’s sport.” For the club, it isn’t — it’s a sport for […]
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — One of the biggest lies in modern politics is the belief that freedom is a universally-shared passion. It isn’t. Freedom implies a burden of responsibility not everyone is willing to bear. In this school of thought, I believe Thomas Hobbes was right: People fear violence, scarcity and death. The majority, therefore, […]
BRASILIA — There’s always something a bit risqué about Brazil’s many short-stay “motels,” where couples can pay by the hour and aren’t all that concerned, usually, with getting a good night’s sleep. But even by those standards, Room 8 in Brasilia’s Altana Motel stands out. Fitted with metal bars on the door and around the […]
SAO PAULO — “My name is Daniel Garcia and I’m 18. I love reading Folha de S. Paulo! Today, I read an article about women unsung heroes, and I believe that my own mother fits that category perfectly. Marlene Garcia is 59, she’s black and she used to be a cleaning lady. Every day, without […]
Maybe the West’s low birth rate arrived when sex was defeated by boredom? One writer’s offbeat reflection on how sexuality overload has backfired.
-OpEd- SÃO PAULO — Any Catholic who has attended mass since Ash Wednesday will have noticed that the Church in Brazil is very concerned about the country’s environment. For the second year in a row, the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil is using its annual pre-Easter fraternity campaign to sound alarm bells over the […]
After a work-related accident that progressively made him blind, Vladir da Silva discovered an unlikely skill and passion taking pictures that relies on other senses. He tells his story.
A day in the life of an Uber driver in São Paulo.
The Facebook founder’s recent self-important manifesto reads like comedy, until we see how it pushes us toward a different kind of authoritarianism.
SAO PAULO — When the contraceptive pill first appeared in the 1960s, it was celebrated as a symbol of sexual freedom for women. But an increasing number of women in Brazil now see it very differently. Many say the pill has become something that is imposed on them by their partners. They believe it has […]
-OpEd- When Donald Trump spoke at his inauguration on Jan. 20, there wasn’t even a hint of trying to be magnanimous. Instead, he called for the most narrow-minded form of nationalism. It’s tempting to see this as one of the many personal shortcomings of the new president of the United States. But that’s not the […]
MANAUS — There’s a gang war raging across northern Brazil. It has led to prison riots in which close to 100 inmates have been killed since the beginning of the year. This violence is linked to the flow of cocaine from Peru to Brazil’s northern, northeastern and central-western regions. The money involved is huge — […]
MINAS GERAIS — After two failed attempts to get vaccinated against yellow fever, 72-year-old José Pedro de Jesus woke up before dawn to get the job done. He lives in a municipality in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais in Brazil called Piedade de Caratinga, where four people are believed to have died of the […]
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — Donald Trump is horrifying. Still, there’s a part of his package that could be quite useful to have in Brazil. I’m referring to the president-elect’s threats against General Motors, Ford and Toyota to try and force them to bring back factories installed in Mexico to the United States. It’s true that […]
All signs say the 56 prisoners killed inside the Anisio Jobim Prison Complex are part of an ongoing drug gang feud on the outside.
-Analysis- I want to avoid all possible misunderstandings so I’ll go straight to the point: I believe Donald Trump’s victory was the effect of an irreversible decline of representative democracy as a viable system of government. What leads me to this conclusion is not my antipathy towards the campaign that led him to victory, nor […]
SAO PAULO — Anywhere you look, they’re there. You could be attacked, even inside your own home. For the 800 indigenous Guarani people living in the four villages of the northern Sao Paulo district of Jaragua, the threat of getting hurt by stray dogs is growing. Locals estimate that there are as many dogs as […]
Lives destroyed, entire towns damaged, widespread health problems. There is no end in sight to the toll on a region in Brazil decimated by a toxic dam break last November.
LES CAYES — As you move through the Haitian cities that stood on Hurricane Matthew’s destructive path, a disturbing question strikes you: What was destroyed in the recent storm and what was damaged from before? You can see scrap metal and zinc sheets that were used as roofs. You can glimpse children bathing in and […]