Brazil news

• Nearly 200 arrested in cross-border crackdown on gold mining in Amazon

  22-01-2026 14:08
  Cash, gold, mercury and firearms seized in operations in Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana and SurinamePolice and prosecutors from Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname have arrested nearly 200 people in their first joint cross-border operation targeting illegal gold mining in the Amazon region, authorities said.The operation was backed by Interpol, the EU and Dutch police specialising in environmental crime. It involved more than 24,500 checks on vehicles and people across remote border areas
  
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• Sincere dialogue needed to ease Cuba’s ‘grave humanitarian crisis’, say Mexico, Spain and Brazil

  19-04-2026 04:26
  In joint statement, the three countries call for lasting solution to crisis, without explicitly mentioning the US and its oil blockade Mexico, Spain and Brazil have voiced concern about the “dramatic situation” in Cuba, which has faced months of pressure from US president Donald Trump, with the trio urging “sincere and respectful dialogue”.Without explicitly mentioning the US, the three leftist-led countries expressed on Saturday “deep concern regarding the grave hu
  
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• Swindled British tourist pays £1,500 for kebab on Rio beach

  15-04-2026 14:36
  Scammer arrested after manipulating payment terminal to overcharge 1,000-fold in latest in spate of seaside consA scammer has been arrested in Rio de Janeiro for selling a kebab to an unsuspecting British tourist for nearly £1,500 – the latest in a spate of brazen beachside swindles.The man was detained on Tuesday on Copacabana beach, just over the road from two of the region’s top hotels. He and an accomplice allegedly manipulated a payment terminal to dramatically overcharge
  
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• ‘We took clothes, a blanket and a dog’: the people displaced by a dam 50 years ago, but still fighting for justice

  15-04-2026 14:00
  The Avá-Guarani community have received little recognition of the destruction of their land by the Itaipu dam on the Paraguay-Brazil borderWhen the Indigenous leader Teodoro Alves was a young child in his community of Ocoy-Jacutinga, on the border between Paraguay and Brazil, a river ran through it. The Paraná River, which rises in Brazil and flows south through Paraguay to the Río de la Plata between Argentina and Uruguay, once structured the lives of Avá-Guarani peo
  
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• Tax Day is a reminder of America’s unequal tax system. But we can fix it | Zohran Mamdani, Gabriel Zucman and Joseph Stiglitz

  15-04-2026 12:00
  There is no justification for a regressive system in which the super-rich contribute less than the rest of usToday, we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. New York City’s average household income is $131,000. Without extreme inequality, residents could live reasonably well. Instead, a few people at the top of the income ladder capture enormous wealth, while millions of others struggle just to get by. Some simply can’t make it. For them, New York has become fundam
  
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• The Blue Trail review – hypnotic tale of older-people rebellion in the Amazon in chilling dystopian fable

  15-04-2026 10:00
  A cross between road movie and sci-fi, this is a subversive and bittersweet story about a 77-year-old who refuses to be shipped off to a ‘colony’Gabriel Mascaro’s wayward, intriguing feature is a kind of road movie, or maybe river movie – the Amazon, in fact, in Brazil’s remote north-west. It is a film that follows its nose, meandering across land and water, wonderfully shot with fascinating visual compositions. There are occasional weird resemblances to Fitzcarrald
  
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• Brazil’s former spy chief who fled country arrested by ICE agents in US

  13-04-2026 20:50
  Alexandre Ramagem fled country after he was sentenced to 16 years for his role in plotting military coup in BrazilWhen Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for an attempted coup, six other members of his cabinet were also found guilty and all began serving their sentences – except for one.Days before the verdict, Alexandre Ramagem, Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, fled by car to Guyana and boarded a flight to the United States, where
  
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• Jorginho calls Chappell Roan security incident a ‘misunderstanding’

  13-04-2026 19:34
  Flamengo footballer previously accused pop star’s security of aggressive behavior to his 11-year-old stepdaughterThe Chappell Roan security incident raises a bigger question: what do celebrities owe their fans?The Flamengo footballer Jorginho has clarified his comments on last month’s incident between his 11-year-old stepdaughter and a security guard in Brazil, calling his previous claims against Chappell Roan “a misunderstanding”.“I made my initial statement in the
  
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• Brazil’s Lula, 80, livestreams workouts before election against rival half his age

  13-04-2026 14:35
  President contrasts his health with challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, who fainted during a TV debateThe Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is seeking to lunge and leg press his way to a historic fourth term, as the octogenarian politician uses a flurry of workout videos to convince voters he is fighting fit ahead of October’s crunch election.Lula looks set to face off against a senator almost half his age in what will be the leftist’s seventh presidential campai
  
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• ‘A dream come true’: Brazil’s blue-and-yellow macaws return to Rio after 200 years

  09-04-2026 13:00
  An ambitious ‘refaunation’ project is bringing the much-loved birds and other lost species back to the city’s national parkImages of the iconic blue-and-yellow macaw can be spotted all over Rio de Janeiro. Yet the real thing has been seen so rarely in the Brazilian city that some wondered if it ever really existed there at all.The French explorer Jean de Léry first described an abundance of the giant, colourful parrots around Indigenous tribes in the 16th century, and th
  
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• Massive blaze tears through Rio's Olympic velodrome – video

  08-04-2026 21:16
  A huge fire ripped through the roof of the velodrome in Rio de Janeiro's Olympic Park, built for the 2016 Olympics, on Wednesday. Officials confirmed that the blaze had been brought under control, with no risk of it spreading to other parts of the complex and no injuries reported Continue reading...
  
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• ‘If they pollute our rivers, what will become of us?’: the town divided between hope and fear in Brazil’s Amazon oil rush

  03-04-2026 13:00
  As a state-controlled company explores for oil in the fragile Equatorial Margin the government struggles to balance its ecological promises with fossil fuel expansion. In Oiapoque, the stakes could not be higherCovering a densely forested area larger than Wales, the municipality and city of Oiapoque, in the state of Amapá, is an isolated yet renowned part of Brazil, thanks to a popular national saying. “From Oiapoque to Chuí” highlights the country’s northernmost
  
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• ‘It’s not just Flávio’: is surname-dropping son downplaying Bolsonaro connection?

  03-04-2026 12:00
  Many Brazilians believe there is a ploy to free the younger Bolsonaro from baggage of his father’s name to return the family to powerHe possesses one of the most famous family names in Latin American politics. But when the Brazilian senator took to the stage at a conservative conference in Grapevine, Texas, last weekend it was only his forename that was on people’s lips.“Flávio! Flávio! Flávio!” the audience shouted as the 44-year-old politician annou
  
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• ‘It’s the year of gay Brazilian cruising!’ The makers of Night Stage on public sex and their ‘deranged erotic thriller’

  03-04-2026 09:00
  Writer-directors Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher talk about the ‘assimilation myth’, why Wim Wenders is wrong and how they’re developing queer western and horror moviesYou wait for ever for a visually electrifying Brazilian film featuring scenes in a gay cruising ground, then two come along at once. First, the Oscar-nominated The Secret Agent showed nocturnal trysts in Recife being violently interrupted by a rampaging disembodied leg. Now hedonists in the queer thriller N
  
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• ‘The US is no longer the go-to place’: How Korean culture is taking Latin America by storm

  02-04-2026 11:00
  Everything Korean – from K-pop and skincare to food and clothing – is booming in popularity in Chile, Mexico and BrazilOn the polished flagstones of a Santiago cultural centre’s forecourt, four Chilean girls dance in energetic union, counting their steps aloud in Korean.In front of them, a YouTube video with 1.3bn views plays atop a speaker throbbing to the beat of How You Like That, by the K-pop megastars Blackpink. Continue reading...
  
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• Night Stage review – public sex enthusiasm the key to extravagant and subversive erotic thriller

  30-03-2026 10:00
  In this fantasy drama from Brazil, a gay actor and a closeted politician discover a mutual passion for the same fetishHere is an erotic thriller from Brazil that finally suspends realism and plausibility to keep its eroticism in play right up to the startling final moments; there is an unexpected strain of the bizarre and soap-operatic.Matias (Gabriel Faryas) is a handsome young actor in a stage company specialising in dance and physical theatre. Jealous of his friend and fellow cast member, Fab
  
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• The security council has allowed unchecked power and brutality. To protect peace, we must reform the UN | Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

  30-03-2026 09:00
  A world without rules is an insecure world. It’s time for multilateralism that truly reflects the global orderEvery violation of international law invites the next. From Afghanistan to Iran, and across Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza and Venezuela, the line between what is permitted and what is prohibited has been steadily blurred by the complicit inaction of the UN security council. Wielding the veto as both a shield and a weapon, its permanent members too often act without grounding in
  
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• Dodging the ‘wrinkle wagon’: why a Brazilian film about ageing is inspiring older women

  26-03-2026 11:00
  The Blue Trail, about a rebellious 77-year old woman who escapes forced exile for elderly people, has struck a nerve in a country where ageism is widespreadWhen 80-year-old Gilda Olinto was given a prize at work recently, she felt as if she was being told “nothing more is expected of you”. It reminded her of The Blue Trail (O Último Azul in Portuguese), a film set in a near-future Brazil where an authoritarian government honours elderly people with golden laurels before stripp
  
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• How weaving, glamping and kayak tours are helping to tackle deforestation in Argentina’s Gran Chaco

  25-03-2026 12:00
  Small farmers and community-led conservation groups are trying to protect one of the biggest semi-arid forests in the world – under threat from expanding agriculture, wildfires and the ‘logging mafia’Jorge Luna stands in a piece of Argentina’s Gran Chaco forest that he calls his own. Birds sing as he surveys skyscraping molle trees, known as pepper trees, palo santo and algarrobo, or carob trees. “It’s good wood,” says Luna, 55. “I was about to cut
  
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• Jailed Bolsonaro granted ‘humanitarian house arrest’ amid failing health

  24-03-2026 20:03
  Former Brazil president, serving 27 years over attempted coup, given initial 90-day period that could be extendedSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxBrazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has been granted permission to serve his 27-year sentence for a coup attempt at home instead of in prison because of his failing health.The decision by supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes followed Bolsonaro’s hospitalization since 13 March for pneumon
  
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• ‘Sport gave me new dreams’: the emergence of Brazil women’s blind team

  24-03-2026 13:06
  Only existing since 2024, the team, who came fourth at the world championship, has changed its players’ lives“We are the first, but we will not be the last.” The rallying cry came from Eliane Gonçalves, a 39-year-old midfielder of the Brazilian women’s blind football national team during one of their training camps. The team’s psychologist had suggested the team come up with something to shout before matches. Gonçalves offered that line – and it
  
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• Brazilian influencer who defended US immigration crackdown arrested by ICE

  02-02-2026 16:10
  Trump supporter Júnior Pena falsely claimed migrants being rounded up, including Brazilians, were ‘all crooks’A rightwing Brazilian influencer who claimed Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown targeted only “crooks” has been arrested by ICE agents in New Jersey.Júnior Pena, whose full name is Eustáquio da Silva Pena Júnior, declared his support for the US president in a recent video message to his hundreds of thousands of social media foll
  
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• ‘Pure apocalypse’: a photographer’s journey through the Pantanal wildfires

  02-02-2026 08:00
  Ahead of a major exhibition in London documenting the South American wetland as it faces unprecedented threat, Lalo de Almeida recounts the stories behind his award-winning images Lalo de Almeida is a documentary photographer based in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2021 his photo essay Pantanal Ablaze was awarded first place in the environment stories category at the World Press Photo contest. In 2022, he won the Eugene Smith grant in humanistic photography and World Press Photo’s long-term
  
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• Why a T-shirt in a hit movie is trending with Brazilian progressives: ‘Almost every day they sell out’

  30-01-2026 11:00
  Even Brazil’spresident, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has received one, after Wagner Moura wore it in The Secret AgentIt is glimpsed in just a few scenes in The Secret Agent, the Brazilian film nominated for four Oscars and two Baftas, but that has been enough exposure for a vintage yellow T-shirt to become the latest object of desire among Brazilian progressives.The garment, worn on screen by Wagner Moura, was first produced in 1978 by Pitombeira dos Quatro Cantos, a carnival group in
  
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• UK supermarkets push for Amazon soy safeguards after traders abandon ban

  26-01-2026 18:43
  European retailers urge traders to adhere to commitments after Brazilian lawmakers wreck forest protection pactLeading British and European retailers are trying to salvage the core elements of the Amazon soy moratorium after the world’s most successful forest protection agreement was wrecked by Brazilian lawmakers and abandoned by international traders.In an open letter, high street brands including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda say the breakdown this month of the 20-year-old agreement
  
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• The Guardian view on food security: Britain can no longer trust markets alone | Editorial

  20-01-2026 19:29
  As climate and geopolitics shocks bite, countries are rebuilding food buffers. The UK clings to neoliberal ideas while households pay the priceFood policy across much of the world is changing. But not in Britain. That may be a costly mistake as the prices of essentials rise because of the climate emergency, geopolitical tensions and the fragility of just-in-time supply chains. Many capitals are now reviving their strategic food reserves. European nations such as Sweden, Finland, Norway and Germa
  
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• Brazil’s Bolsonaro finds novel way to reduce 27-year sentence: reading books

  16-01-2026 14:19
  Former president convicted for coup plot to take advantage of law that knocks four days off jail term for each book readJair Bolsonaro’s lawyers appear to have been reading up on the country’s penal code and have found a way to help their client reduce the 27-year prison sentence he received last year for plotting a coup: by reading books.There is only one problem: the former far-right Brazilian president has never been known as a bibliophile. “Sorry, I don’t have time to
  
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• Brutal, vibrant and creative: capturing the soul of Latin America in 100 photographs

  12-01-2026 14:00
  The journalist Paulo Antonio Paranaguá uses images from the turbulent continent to weave a history of the region, covering colonisation, slavery and dictatorshipIts tumultuous past, marked by massacres, slavery, violent domination, coups d’état, revolutions and uprisings, often overshadows another narrative of Latin America: that of a vibrant, culturally rich region where art, creativity and solidarity hold a central place in society.Throughout its post-Columbian history &nda
  
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• EU states back controversial Mercosur deal with Latin American countries

  09-01-2026 18:27
  Agreement after 25 years of negotiations prompts farmers to block roads in Paris, Brussels and WarsawEuropean Union member states have backed the biggest ever free trade agreement with a group of Latin American countries, ending 25 years of negotiations but stoking further tensions with farmers and environmentalists around the bloc.The contentious Mercosur deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay prompted immediate protests in Poland, France, Greece and Belgium, with farmers blocking ke
  
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• Brazilian president vetoes bill reducing Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence

  08-01-2026 19:03
  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rejects bill passed by congress as he marks anniversary of 2023 Brasília riotsBrazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has vetoed a bill that would dramatically reduce the prison sentence of the country’s far-right former leader Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted last year of plotting a coup.Lula vetoed the bill, which was passed by congress in December, on the third anniversary of riots by Bolsonaro supporters in the capital, Bras&
  
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