Worldcrunch
Watching from abroad as Brazil’s anti-corruption probe rumbles into its fourth year, you can’t help but think: “Well, I guess they’re all corrupt…” “How could it get any worse?” No doubt, many Brazilians are thinking the same. The latest episode in this seemingly unending series of accusations and counter-accusations, rising and falling political fortunes, is […]
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.
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.
O Globo, May 11, 2017 Brazil is riveted by the highly anticipated appearance of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to defend himself against charges in one of the largest corruption scheme cases in the country. On Thursday’s front page, Rio-based daily O Globo shows the 71-year-old appearing for the first time at the […]
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, […]
In the heart of the rainforest, in a place which for a long time was only accessible by boat, stands the improbable Teatro Amazonas, built during the late 19th-century rubber boom. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
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 […]
Correio Braziliense, April 12, 2017 A Supreme Court judge’s bombshell decision has many of the Brazil’s top political figures running for cover, the daily Correio Braziliense reports. On Tuesday, Judge Edson Fachin extended the already three-year-old Lava Jato (“Car Wash”) anti-corruption probe by opening investigations into 108 people suspected of involvement in a massive bribery […]
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.
Brazil is a major banana-producing country. In Belem, the gateway to the River Amazon in the north of the country, these dock workers were unloading the day’s cargo destined for city markets. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
-Analysis- It’s just a coincidence, but the symbolism is too hard to ignore. Two days ago, as every year on March 8, the world was celebrating women for, among other things, their “economic” and “political achievements.” Earlier today, South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled that President Park Geun-hye must be removed from office over a corruption […]
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.
Rio de Janeiro-based O Globo daily’s front page offered a snapshot of the contrasts of today’s Brazil. While top story reported on a troubling new unemployment trend, as an estimated 2.3 million of the country’s jobless now take at least two years to find work, the newspaper also featured a centerpiece photograph of the flurry […]
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 […]
It was always going to be a tricky nomination. Still, Brazilian President Michel Temer could hardly have made a more controversial choice for the vacant seat on the nation’s Supreme Court. With anti-corruption investigation Lava Jato (“Car Wash”) still very much at the center of national debate, giving the nod to his close ally and […]
Invoking religion against one’s enemies is a sure way to perpetuate resentment and war. It stretches from the Crusades to the internet where you are reading right now.
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 — […]
Among the world’s many gloomy corners, it is hard to get any gloomier than Brazil. After a drug war broke out among several criminal groups, leading to huge prison riots and the death of close to 100 inmates, what looks like a worrying yellow fever outbreak and the death of the Supreme Court judge leading […]
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 […]
SAO PAULO — The hatchet has been dug up. No surprise there. The truce brought about in the ride-hailing war by Didi Chuxing’s acquisition of Uber’s Chinese operation in August was only ever going to be temporary. Instead, this hiatus allowed both competitors to pick a new battleground: Brazil. São Paulo-based business magazine Exame reported […]
All signs say the 56 prisoners killed inside the Anisio Jobim Prison Complex are part of an ongoing drug gang feud on the outside.
[dailymotion //www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x55f778 expand=1] Goodbye 2016: A Zapping Video Year In Review by Worldcrunch
The “looking back” on the past 12 months has begun. In Brazil’s case, 2016 may be the worst year in recent memory — and perhaps wins last place for good news of all countries at peace. Sadly, it’s hard to imagine how 2017 could be much better. In southeastern Brazil, 2016 started in toxic mud, […]
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 […]
O Globo, Nov. 17, 2016 “Attacks on the Legislature” was the headline Thursday morning on Brazilian newspaper O Globo after protesters calling for a military coup forced their way into Brazil’s lower chamber of Congress. The protestors in Brasilia, the country’s capital, pushed passed security guards and smashed a glass door before entering into the […]
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 […]
PORTO ALEGRE — Sitting on the bed in her white hospital gown, Jéssica Almeida was devouring a hamburger. But the scene is deceiving. In total, the 17-year-old spent a month in the hospital and lost 10 kilograms (22 pounds). Such weight loss, which might indicate malnutrition, is common among hospital patients in Brazil, and it […]
Kaciane do Nascimento’s love of reading led to her open a library in the backyard of her house, in a low-income housing development in São Paulo state. Now she’s working on a book of her own.
LA CRUZ — Yet another migrant crisis for the world: the tiny Central American nation of Costa Rica is now faced with the arrival of thousands of Haitians, many by way of crisis-hit Brazil. Over the past four months, some 8,500 Haitians have entered the tiny Central American nation, reports La Nación, based in the […]