Worldcrunch
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — Imagine the following situation: You go to the bathroom, but because you’re in a hurry, you head toward the exit without washing your hands. As you try to open the door, you notice that it has locked automatically. An alarm bell sounds. Only then you understand that the door won’t open […]
SÃO PAULO — When the dam at the iron ore mine in Mariana burst more than a month ago, killing at least 15 people, it was quickly described as Brazil‘s worst ecological disaster ever. The 40 billion liters of toxic mud unleashed in the central state of Minas Gerais, destroyed houses, roads, and left many […]
Why can’t Brazil’s largest city keep its graveyards clean?
The speaker of Brazil’s lowest house of Parliament, Eduardo Cunha, has initiated impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff. The political showdown between two leaders described as “arch enemies” was put in stark terms on the Thursday edition of Portuguese-language Brazilian daily Correio, which used the English word “Impeachment” on the front page. Rousseff is facing […]
-Editorial- SAO PAULO — We Brazilians have rarely faced an economic downturn of this magnitude. From April 2014 to September 2015, the country’s GDP contracted by 5.8%, and there are no signs that a turnaround is forthcoming. We haven’t seen anything like it since the “lost decade” that began in the early 1980s or, before […]
Folha de S. Paulo, Nov. 24, 2015 Brazil is facing its greatest ecological disaster in memory after a huge wave of mud, caused by the Nov. 5 collapse of a dam at an iron ore mine, has reached the ocean, pouring its toxic waste into the Atlantic, Folha de S. Paulo reports. The startling image […]
SÃO PAULO — She has an automatic SUV; he has a normal five-speed sedan. She drives to make a bit of money on the side; he does it for a living, 12 hours a day. She’s an Uber driver; he’s an old-fashioned cabbie. As such, they stand on opposite sides of what has been a […]
Like cases reported in India, Afghanistan and some Middle Eastern countries, gender-based violence that leads to mutilation and disfiguration is also a brutal reality in Brazil.
Two years after hosting a costly FIFA World Cup, Brazil will once again be on the world sporting stage next summer at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. But now, with the Brazilian economy facing a deepening crisis, the government has an idea for some help from a pillar of the “sharing economy”: […]
EGYPT RESTRICTS UK RESCUE FLIGHTS Egyptian authorities are restricting flights sent to rescue British tourists, who were stranded at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport after Saturday’s crash of a Russian plane, the BBC reports. Some 20 flights were planned to take British tourists back home today, but it appears that only about eight will depart. According […]
In Brazil, law enforcement officers boast on social network sites about committing violence against suspects, and show off the results for all to see.
U.S. TO STEP UP ANTI-ISIS FIGHT The United States may soon dramatically escalate its military campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said at a Senate hearing yesterday that the new policy could include more “strikes from the air or direct action on the ground,” The Washington Post reports. The recommendations […]
Brazil has utterly failed to find an environmentally friendly response to waste disposal. The struggling economy makes change unlikely, meaning ever more garbage “pickers” making modest livings sifting through the dumps.
SAO PAULO — The mess that is Brazilian politics right now would make for a fantastic television drama series. Its intricate plots, combining power disputes and alliances concluded behind closed doors, would easily match those of Game of Thrones, except that the omnipresent blood would be replaced with dirty money. Ever since her reelection for […]
Grim accusations from a United Nations probe that Brazilian police use extrajudicial murder to clear out youth gangs in Rio de Janeiro ahead of next year’s Olympics.
SÃO PAULO — Israel Afonso Lima, a janitor in this Brazilian city, suffers from Down syndrome. But that didn’t stop him, at the age of 36, from deciding to go back to school to learn Brazilian sign language. And it’s for a very good reason: to be able to communicate with his wife, 37-year-old Eliene […]
Today’s generation of university students are the children of so-called “helicopter parents,” particularly coddled and worried about in the US. And they can’t seem to cope in the face of adulthood.
Salvador is nicknamed “Brazil’s capital of happiness.” I wonder why …
NEW MOVES ON SYRIAN WAR CHESSBOARD The diplomatic deadlock over how to end the bloody civil war in Syria is growing deeper by the hour. The upper house of the Russian Parliament has voted unanimously in favor of allowing the use of Russian troops in Syria, paving the way for the Russian air force to […]
Brazilian governments again are guilty of spending too much when exports and revenues were booming. A view from neighboring Argentina, where bad economics is endemic.
BRASILIA — While most Brazilians are focused on the country’s deepening economic and political crises, some politicians have another priority. A special committee in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies passed a controversial statute last week that defined a family as a concept beginning from the union of a man and a woman. Rio de Janeiro […]
A showdown over Israel’s choice for ambassador to Brazil, pro-settlements leader Dani Dayan, shows the Netanyahu government may be set to abandon the two-state solution that has promised Palestinians a homeland.
After spreading in the U.S. in the wake of the financial crisis, food trucks are arriving in Brazilian cities such as Sao Paulo, which are eager for culinary adventure at a low price.
When Rio de Janeiro won its Olympic bid back in 2009, Brazil was hailed as a nation on the rise. Now, it is the wrong place at the wrong time to host the 2016 Summer Games.
SAO PAULO — João Batista, a 45-year-old builder, has been unemployed since December. Jailson de Lima, 46, is luckier: He still manages to find construction work from time to time but doesn’t earn enough to pay rent, which has been on a relentless rise. Cristiane dos Santos, 27, lived in a hostel for some time […]
Of all the milestones along the road to human civilization, none is more profound than the advent of reading and writing. But in the name of interactivity, the 21st century is marked by the shallow language of social media that risks burning all our acqui
Faced with an economic downturn and corruption among state officials, the middle class is venting its fury at Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. But that may not be enough to oust her.
CHINESE ANGER GROWS AFTER EXPLOSIONS Families of firefighters who died battling the fires that followed last week’s massive explosions at a storage warehouse in the Chinese port city of Tianjin protested and clashed with police amid revelations that several hundred tons of poisonous cyanide were stored where the explosions took place, the South China Morning […]
Folha de S. Paulo, Aug. 17, 2015 Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets in cities across the country Sunday, calling for Dilma Rousseff’s resignation as the Brazilian president and her party face corruption allegations. “New protests keep Dilma under pressure; 135,000 demonstrate in Sao Paulo,” Monday’s Folha de S. Paulo“s front page […]
In Belém, the gateway to the Amazon River in northern Brazil, we were able to admire impressive examples of the Victoria amazonica (or Victoria regia, as it used to be called) which grows mostly in this region. The largest water lily on Earth, we were told it could sustain the weight of a small dog.
The 2016 Summer Olympic Games start next Aug. 5 in Rio de Janeiro with too many projects behind schedule. One particular environmental hurdle looks insurmountable.
-OpEd- PARIS — The late 1990s anti-globalization movement that protested against summits like the World Trade Organization in Seattle and G8 in Genoa used the slogan: “Another world is possible.” Is this “other world” now being constructed before our eyes by the BRICS, as the emerging countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa […]
President Barack Obama is restoring United States influence on the American continent, a reminder of the importance of neighbors.
The world’s second-largest economy is now Brazil’s top customer for oil, but also its most important buyer of soybeans, iron ore and cellulose.
CARUARU — For months now, water taps in some of northeastern Brazil’s cities have been running dry. Not during certain hours of the day. Or certain days of the week. But all the time. Morning and night. Day after day, with the exception of just two days per month. And it’s not just residents being […]
After doing business with both Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and China, Brazil’s space program is going back to where it started: NASA.
The number of Brazilians living and working in the United States is growing fast, yet neither government has taken the steps necessary to mobilize this community.
SAO PAULO — Cemeteries are rarely considered places of beauty and pleasure. The one in the Sao Paulo neighborhood of Jardim Angela was also grim for another reason, considering that in 1996 the UN ranked it the most violent urban region in the world. But now a part of this graveyard is bringing some smiles […]
-Essay- SAO PAULO — It’s the future here, writing with a warning to brace yourself. How I would love to tell you that in 35 years you’ll be able to go back in time, fix your mistakes and change history. Sadly, you won’t be able to do that. The United Nations Climate Change Conference in […]
El Tiempo, June 18, 2015 “Victory and revenge,” reads the front page of today’s El Tiempo, after Colombia enjoyed a dramatic victory over Brazil at the Copa America Wednesday night. It was Brazil’s first loss to Colombia since 1991, leaving the two teams tied at the top of Group C with three points, along with […]