Collapsing Coalition

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's (above) ruling coalition collapsed Tuesday when her main partner went into opposition, leaving the embattled president increasingly helpless in her fight against impeachment.

The PMDB, the country's largest party, voted to end its alliance with Rousseff's leftist Workers' Party, or PT, with immediate effect.

"From today, at this historic meeting of the PMDB, the PMDB withdraws from the government of President Rousseff," said Senator Romero Juca, the party vice president.

The meeting, broadcast live on national television, was the culmination of a long divorce with Rousseff that leaves Brazil's first female president grasping at straws as she tries to stay in power.

The vote and announcement took no more than three minutes and was accompanied by singing of the national anthem and shouts of "PT out!"

Senator Aecio Neves, who heads the PSDB opposition party and who narrowly lost to Rousseff when she won re-election in 2014, commented: "Dilma's government is finished."

"The exit of the PMDB is the last nail in the coffin," he said.

Rousseff, who is fighting recession, street protests, a mammoth corruption scandal, and the push in Congress for her impeachment, had met PMDB ministers Monday to try to convince them to stay.

But already on Monday, Tourism Minister Henrique Alves resigned, saying time had "run out" on the president.

The mostly centrist PMDB has long been an awkward partner for the Workers' Party.

But its votes in Congress, where it has 69 of the 513 lower house seats, would have been important to Rousseff in her bid to avoid impeachment, which requires two thirds of the votes in the lower house to pass.

Rousseff also fears that the PMDB's exit will encourage other coalition partners to jump ship.

Lawmakers from both the center-right Progressive Party, which has 49 deputies, and the center-left Social Democratic Party, which has 32, said their parties would meet this week on a possible split.  Read more: 

Criminal Charges Filed

Brazilian prosecutors are filing charges against ex-President Lula da Silva (above) in a money laundering investigation, officials say.

He denies any wrongdoing and says the charges are politically-motivated. 

The accusations are part of a major corruption investigation at the state oil company, Petrobras. 

Lula and his wife, Marisa Leticia, face questions over the alleged ownership of a sea-front penthouse in the exclusive resort of Guaruja. 

The charges still have to be formally accepted by a judge. 

Prosecutors have announced a news conference for later on Thursday.

Lula's lawyer, Cristiano Zanin Martins, said he did not have official access to the accusations against the former leader.

"This action confirms the bias [against Lula] in this whole process," he said.

Prosecutors say one of the country's biggest construction firms, OAS, carried out extensive refurbishment on the penthouse.

Officially the apartment belongs OAS, which is under investigation. It has been accused of paying bribes to politicians and senior officials at Petrobras to secure lucrative contracts.

Lula, 70, denies all accusations and says he never owned the apartment. He also accuses the prosecutor in the case of being arbitrary, says the BBC's Daniel Gallas in Sao Paulo.

The former president was detained last Friday for questioning over the three-storey penthouse.

His high-profile detention led to criticism not only from his supporters but also from judges and politicians, who said the measure was unnecessary.

Lula's supporters say the attacks on him are aimed at tarnishing his reputation, amid rumours that he may run for office again in 2018.

He was Brazil's president from 2003 to 2011 and was succeeded in office by his political protege, Dilma Rousseff.

She joined hundreds of people showing support for the former president last Saturday.

Scandal in Brazil

Brazil's ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (above) has vowed to fight allegations that he was involved in a huge bribery scheme run by oil giant Petrobras.

"I fear nothing," he said, after being interrogated on Friday over allegations that he received millions of dollars in illegal payments.

Lula, a left-wing icon, left office in 2011. 

His Workers' Party has been hit hard by the long-running scandal.

His brief detention led to clashes outside his home near Sao Paulo. 

After his interrogation Lula told reporters he was the victim of a "prejudice as a working-class man", adding: "I escaped death from hunger when I was five... I was the best president to govern this country, the poorest of this country re-elected me because they could eat now."

He also said there had been no need for police to detain him. 

"If they wanted to hear from me, they only had to call and I would have gone, because I owe nothing to anyone and fear nothing."

This was echoed by his successor, current President Dilma Rousseff, who said it had been "unnecessary" to take him into custody.

The Petrobras inquiry, known as Operation Car Wash, has led to criminal proceedings against dozens of business executives and Workers' Party figures accused of taking part in the multibillion-dollar corruption scheme.

The Workers' Party has held the Brazilian presidency since 2003, both under Lula and Ms Rousseff.

In the latest operations, police enforced 33 search and 11 detention warrants in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Bahia, officials said.

Lula, 70, is suspected of receiving about 30m reais ($8m; £5.6m) in speaking fees and donations to his charity, the Lula Institute. 

His home in Sao Bernardo do Campo was among the premises targeted, as was the headquarters of the institute in Sao Paulo. 

Prosecutor Carlos Fernando dos Santos Lima said: "Among the five largest donors to the Lula Institute, 60% of all the donations were paid by the five largest businessmen involved in the Car Wash scandal."

A police statement quoted by Reuters news agency said: "There is evidence that the crimes enriched him and financed electoral campaigns and the treasury of his political group."

However, no charges have been brought against Lula so far.

The institute said in a statement (in Portuguese) the "violence" against the former president was "arbitrary, illegal and unjustifiable", as he had been co-operating with the investigations.

The Workers' Party called the operation a "political spectacle".

Nightmare Spreads

Montevideo (AFP) - South American health ministers held an emergency meeting on slowing the spread of the Zika virus, dubbed a "nightmare" by hard-hit Brazil, where it is blamed for brain damage in babies. 

With health authorities warning the disease could infect up to four million people in the Americas, ministers from 14 countries held talks in Uruguay to plot their response to the growing crisis, with fears the virus could spread worldwide.

The meeting focused on ways to control the mosquito population spreading the virus, though reports of a US patient catching the disease by having sex fueled fears that it will not be easy to contain.

Brazil said it was sending more than 500,000 personnel out to clean up mosquito breeding grounds and advise people about the disease.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said her government was directing "all resources" available toward the crisis, and vowed to do "absolutely everything" for the families of babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads and brains.

The number of babies with the condition has surged since the Zika outbreak sweeping Latin America was detected last year.

"This virus, which only recently arrived in Brazil and Latin America, no longer is a distant nightmare but a real threat to all Brazilians' homes," Rousseff said in a nationally televised message.

Florida Governor Rick Scott meanwhile declared a health emergency in four counties after six new Zika cases were detected in the US state.

The new infections bring the number of Zika cases in Florida to nine.

Authorities say all caught the virus while traveling abroad, though there is concern it could spread locally because the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits the virus is present in the southern United States.

The fever starts with a mosquito bite and normally causes little more than a fever and rash.

But since October, Brazil has reported 404 confirmed cases of microcephaly -- up from 147 in 2014 -- plus 3,670 suspected cases.

The timing has fueled strong suspicions that Zika is causing the birth defect.

The virus has also been linked to a potentially paralyzing nerve disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome in some patients.

Brazil is Losing the Battle

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- Brazil's health minister says the country will mobilize some 220,000 troops to battle the mosquito blamed for spreading a virus suspected of causing birth defects, but he also was quoted recently as saying the battle already is being lost.

Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts ahead of the country's Carnival celebrations, according to Rio de Janeiro's O Globo newspaper. 

It also quoted Castro as saying the government would distribute mosquito repellent to some 400,000 pregnant women who receive cash-transfer benefits.

And all major Brazilian dailies quoted Castro as saying the country is "badly losing the battle" against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever.

"The mosquito has been here in Brazil for three decades, and we are badly losing the battle against the mosquito," Folha de S. Paulo newspaper quoted him as saying as a crisis group on Zika was meeting in the capital, Brasilia.

Emails to Castro's office for comment were not immediately answered.

A massive eradication effort eliminated Aedes aegypti from Brazil during the 1950s, but the mosquito slowly returned over the following decades from neighboring nations, public health experts have said. 

That led to outbreaks of dengue, which was recorded in record numbers last year.

The arrival of Zika in Brazil last year initially caused little alarm, as the virus' symptoms are generally much milder than those of dengue. 

It didn't become a crisis until late in the year, when researchers made the link with a dramatic increase in reported cases of microcephaly, a rare birth defect that sees babies born with unusually small heads and can cause lasting developmental problems.

Worry about the rapid spread of Zika has expanded across the nation, and the hemisphere beyond. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised pregnant women to reconsider travel to Brazil and 21 other countries and territories with Zika outbreaks.

Officials in El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil have suggested women stop getting pregnant until the crisis has passed.

Repellent has disappeared from many Brazilian pharmacies and prices for the product have tripled or even quadrupled where it's still available in recent weeks since the government announced a suspected link between Zika virus and microcephaly

Toxic Gas Unleashed

A chemical explosion at a cargo warehouse in Brazil has spread toxic gas over the country's biggest port.

The company owners said the containers in Santos were full of acid and a disinfectant which came into contact with rainwater, causing a reaction. 

The area's mayor said at least 66 people were taken to hospital with breathing difficulties. 

Officials said the fire had been controlled but that there is still smoke in the area.

The cargo terminal and nearby homes were evacuated and residents were asked to stay inside. 

The container terminal was operated by Localfrio, a logistics company, in Guaruja, an area on the eastern side of Santos, in Sao Paulo state.

Santos, a coastal city in southern Brazil's São Paulo state, is a major seaport stretching from the mainland to São Vicente Island. The island's urban center borders the Bay of Santos, known for its wide beach and adjacent 5.3km-long garden. The Museu do Café, occupying a 1922 commodities exchange preserved in the historic district, explores the area's key role in Brazil's coffee trade.

A spokeswoman for the company, which exports chemicals used for refrigeration and general cargo, said the containers were filled with chloric acid and sodium dichloroisocyanurate - a cleaning and disinfectant agent.

Firefighters said rainwater had seeped into the containers causing a chemical reaction. 

Local Mayor Mario Antonieta de Brito asked people to stay out of the rain which could "contain chemical elements that can burn the skin".

This is the latest in a series of recent incidents involving chemical companies in Brazil:
Not too long ago, the country's worst environmental disaster, a dam used to hold waste water from an iron mine collapsed in Minas Gerais state in November 2015, killing at least 13 people. Mud containing toxic substances like mercury, arsenic, chromium and manganese reached the Atlantic Ocean

And, shortly after that in April 2015, a fire at a fuel storage facility near Santos raged for nine days, sending a thick black smoke into the sky.

A dam at a separate iron ore mine in Minas Gerais state collapsed in September 2014 causing a landslide that killed three worker...   leaving everyone wondering what might be next.

A Declining Brazil

Brazil’s economy will contract more than previously forecast and is heading for the deepest recession since at least 1901 as economic activity and confidence sink amid a political crisis, a survey of analysts showed.

Latin America’s largest economy will shrink 2.95 percent this year, according to the weekly central bank poll of about 100 economists, versus a prior estimate of a 2.81 percent contraction.

Analysts lowered their 2016 growth forecast for 13 straight weeks and estimate the economy contracted 3.71 percent last year. 

Brazil’s policy makers are struggling to control the fastest inflation in 12 years without further hamstringing a weak economy. 

Finance Minister Nelson Barbosa, who took the job in December, has faced renewed pressure to moderate austerity proposals aimed at bolstering public accounts and avoiding further credit downgrades. 

Impeachment proceedings and an expanding corruption scandal have also been hindering approval of economic policies in Congress.

“We’re now taking into account a very depressed scenario,” Flavio Serrano, senior economist at Haitong in Sao Paulo, said by phone. 

Central bank director Altamir Lopes said on Dec. 23 the institution will adopt necessary policies to bring inflation to its 4.5 percent target in 2017.

 Less than a week later, the head of President Dilma Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, Rui Falcao, said Brazil should refrain from cutting investments and consider raising its inflation target to avoid higher borrowing costs.

Consumer confidences measured by the Getulio Vargas Foundation in December reached a record low.

Business confidence as measured by the National Industry Confederation fell throughout most of last year, rebounding slightly from a record low in October.

The last time Brazil had back-to-back years of recession was 1930 and 1931, and has never had one as deep as that forecast for 2015 and 2016 combined, according to data from national economic research institute IPEA that dates back to 1901.

We All Want Rights

In Brazil, an impeachment process that opened this month against the president is only part of the current power battles in Congress. 

The president’s opponents are also trying to restrict Brazil’s limited access to abortion, in a move that’s received blow back from women across the country.

Abortion is legal in Brazil only in cases of rape, a brain defect in the fetus, or a life-threatening pregnancy. But even then, it’s not easily accessible. 

In the state of Rio, home to 16 million people, there is just one doctor in the public health system who performs legal abortions. 

Julia Viana, who asked us not to use her real name, works for a public health NGO and deals with these issues up close. 

Before becoming a mother of three, she herself got an illegal abortion in the late 80s; this year, when Viana’s daughter got pregnant, she supported her daughter's decision to end the pregnancy.

Viana says in the past, women seeking abortions had more options, even if they were underground clinics. 

It was relatively easy to find a doctor who did the procedure and wouldn’t report you. Now, she says, it’s a very different story.

When Viana asked her colleagues at work where to get a safe abortion these days, she says they told her to hush up.

“They looked at me funny, saying ‘You're exposing yourself.’”

She found that underground clinics had closed across Rio in the last few years.

Viana says that intensifying politics around abortion in Brazil have put police under more pressure to make arrests for something to which they previously turned a blind eye. 

She adds that doctors who attend rape victims are known to lecture their patients or even give subpar treatment.

 “I hear reports of procedures done without anesthesia and doctors racking up wait time, with the idea of sending women the message, ‘You’re responsible for this.’”

If a bill in Brazil's Congress passes, rape victims will also have to register at a police station and get their bodies inspected in order to get treated at the hospital, be it for an abortion or for regular attendance after rape, which includes medicine to prevent HIV and the morning-after pill to prevent pregnancy. 

Activists say this will discourage women from seeking the healthcare they need, especially in many neighborhoods where police aren't trusted.

Last month, thousands of women in Rio protested against this bill.

Garbage Gold

The closure of Latin America's biggest rubbish dump in 2012 was widely applauded. But little more than two years on, many of the rubbish-pickers who worked there are sorry it's gone, and poorer without it.

More than 2,000 self-styled "treasure hunters" used to trawl the mountains of rubbish at Gramacho, a dump overlooked by Rio de Janeiro's iconic Christ the Redeemer statue.

Sifting through tonnes of waste, the rubbish-pickers - or catadores - searched for recyclable materials they could sell, and sometimes they literally struck gold.

One day Cleonice Bento glimpsed something particularly shiny among the rotten food and plastic bottles.

"I found a Portuguese gold necklace, sold it and built a two-storey house," she recalls. She even had enough money left over to take a holiday from rubbish-picking for another month.

Geraldo Oliveira, a 63-year-old known as Brizola, uncovered a treasure trove of a different kind.
Nestled inside a tube among the rubbish he found $12,000 (£8,000).

And then $9,000 (£6,000) more.

"I was scared," he remembers. "So I got a $100 note, buried the rest, and went to a money changer to check it was a true note - and it was!

"The dump was a mother, she provided everything."

The move was welcomed by environmentalists, politicians and even the majority of the catadores who, despite the fears about the future, agreed the work was dangerous and inhumane.

Today the gate to the old landfill is locked. The methane gas produced from 35 years of waste now supplies green energy to a nearby oil refinery.

The pickers were not abandoned completely. They received compensation and the promise of a new recycling facility next to the old site.

The Polo de Reciclagem de Gramacho is the first of its kind in Brazil, employing former rubbish-pickers who now work in better conditions with regular hours and pay.

But the former catadores earn only a fraction of what many earned on the dump. Cleonice says she now makes 500 reais (£125, $190) a month, a third of what she used to make.

"Despite the working conditions, the dump was a gold mine," says Dione Manetti, a consultant who has worked with rubbish-pickers across Brazil for 20 years.

Sometimes Gramacho rubbish pickers could make 4,000 reais (£1,000, $1,500) a month, he says.

"At the moment we are happy," says Rosinete dos Santos, an ex-catadora who is now financial co-ordinator of the new recycling facility.

"But if a new dump opened at the end of the road everyone would be out of here and up to the dump in a flash."

Amazon Destruction

The rate of destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has increased for a second year running.

Brazilian government figures show deforestation was up by 29% in the 12 months up to the end of July 2013.

Satellite data showed that almost 6,000 sq km (2,315 sq miles) of forest were cleared during that period.

The largest increases in deforestation were seen in the states of Para and Mato Grosso, where most of Brazil's agricultural expansion is taking place.

More than 1,000 sq km (390 sq miles) have been cleared in each state.

Last year, the Brazilian authorities said there had been a 28% rise in deforestation.

That reversed several years of decline.

The worst year since the Brazilian government began tracking deforestation was 2004, when almost 30,000 sq km (11,580 sq miles) of forest were lost.

Besides agricultural expansion, the rebound in deforestation is due to illegal logging and the invasion of public lands adjacent to big infrastructure projects in the Amazon, such as roads and hydroelectric dams.

To date, there have been identified approximately 56 000 species of plants (described), 1 700 bird species, 695 amphibian species, 578 mammal species and 651 reptile species.

Rainforests cover almost 60% of the entire area of Brazil at 477 698 000 hectares, which is equal to 1 844 394 square miles or just under 3 million square kilometers. This means that Brazil is home to a third of the world’s rainforests, making it one of the most intriguing and beautiful lands on earth.

The dense rainforests of Brazil consume an enormous amount of the world’s Carbon Dioxide and release Oxygen in return. However, when they are destroyed, the trees release the Carbon as greenhouse gases, with huge implications for earth and its atmosphere.

Most of the rainforest areas in Brazil are concentrated within the Amazon Basin, which is particularly humid, with year-round precipitation, making for the ideal ‘jungle’ environment.

The destruction of great swaths of the Brazilian Amazon has turned scores of rare species into the walking dead, doomed to disappear even if deforestation were halted in the region overnight, according to a new study.

Forest clearing in Brazil has already claimed casualties, but the animals lost to date in the rainforest region are just one-fifth of those that will slowly die out as the full impact of the loss of habitat takes its toll.

In parts of the eastern and southern Amazon, 30 years of concerted deforestation have shrunk viable living and breeding territories enough to condemn 38 species to regional extinction in coming years, including 10 mammal, 20 bird and eight amphibian species, scientists found.

The systematic clearance of trees from the Amazon forces wildlife into ever-smaller patches of ground.

Though few species are killed off directly in forest clearances, many face a slower death sentence as their breeding rates fall and competition for food becomes more intense.

Boleto Busts Brazil

Researchers from an American security company have unearthed a substantial malware-based fraud ring.

The operation has infiltrated one of Brazil's most popular payment methods, Boleto, for two years.

An estimated 495,753 Boleto transactions have been compromised, which means the hackers could have stolen up to $3.75bn (£2.18bn).

Researchers say it is not known whether the fraudsters were successful in collecting on all of the transactions.

Boleto Bancario allows an individual to pay an exact amount to a merchant and can be used for almost every kind of transaction, from the weekly shop to phone bills.

Boletos can be used and generated both online for electric transfers and offline with printed paper.

The attack has been described by US-based security company RSA, a division of data storage corporation EMC, as "a major fraud operation and a serious cybercrime threat to banks, merchants and banking customers in Brazil".

It is not clear how much has been stolen or whether all the funds were successfully redirected to fraudster-controlled bank accounts.

However, this will have been the largest electronic theft in history if even half of the valued worth turns out to be in the hands of criminals, according to the New York Times.

The number of infected PCs totals 192,227 - an additional 83,506 email user credentials have also been stolen.

Known colloquially as a man-in-the-browser threat, the malware silently injects itself into users' web browsers after hackers have initially tricked individuals into clicking malicious links in seemingly ordinary looking emails. This is similar in principle to phishing scams.

Once the malware is in the browser, fraudsters can begin to intercept and alter Boleto details. This activity is invisible to the user.

"Because of its stealth capabilities, end-users also have little chance of detecting Boleto fraud on their own," said RSA researchers.

Google's Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer are all vulnerable to the attack.

Brazil Happy - US Relaxes Grip

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff (right) the United States on Wednesday for its decision to ease control over the Internet and called for a more democratic, transparent network following the U.S. National Security Agency spying scandal.

Rousseff spoke at a global conference that she convened on how to govern a safer, less U.S.-centered Internet after revelations that she and other world leaders had been spied upon by the NSA.

"The Internet we want will only be possible in a scenario of respect for human rights, in particular the right to privacy and freedom of expression," she said.

Rousseff hailed President Barack Obama's decision to hand off control of ICANN, a California-based non-profit in charge of assigning Internet domains or addresses, to an international oversight body that has yet to be decided on.

"We can no longer put off the need to globalize the institutions responsible for the key functions of the Internet today," Rousseff said.

Revelations last year by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden that the United States spied on Internet users with secret programs prompted worldwide calls for reducing U.S. control of the network now connecting one-third of the world's population.

Rousseff, a left-leaning ally of the United States whose personal emails and phone calls were allegedly targeted by the NSA, said massive surveillance of the Internet was unacceptable.

As she spoke, activists wearing masks with the face of the whistleblower stood up with a banner that read: "We are all victims of surveillance. We stand with you, Dilma!".

The U.S. delegate urged caution. White House cybersecurity coordinator Michael Daniel said the Obama administration was taking the concerns and mistrust raised by the NSA revelations very seriously.

"But there are some who would like to use the recent disclosure of our signals intelligence program as an excuse to upend the successful multi-stakeholder approach and the openness it promotes," he told the conference.

Daniel's remark was a indirect reference to countries like China and Russia that favor handing over management of the Internet to a multilateral body representing only governments, such as the United Nations.

Washington agreed to cede oversight of ICANN in September 2015 on condition that it does not come under the control of other governments.

While Brazil initially advocated U.N. involvement, Rousseff said the current "multi stakeholder" model used by ICANN, which involves governments, companies, academics, technical experts and private users, was the best way to go.

Brazilian Wisdom

Brazil is considering ways to make local use of the internet less dependent on US-based services, following leaks about Washington's cyberspy operations.

The South American nation has suggested forcing internet firms to open data centers in Brazil, which would be used to store locally generated material.

It is also pursuing a plan to build a new internet cable.  The project would offer a way for data to bypass the US.

Brazil's President, Dilma Rousseff, has postponed a state visit to Washington after allegations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had targeted her emails and phone calls.

It has also been alleged that the NSA hacked state-run oil company Petrobras and intercepted billions of emails and calls to Brazilians.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has previously defended the NSA's actions, saying they were necessary to combat terrorism.

"Brazil and other countries will understand exactly what we are doing, why and how - and we will work together to make sure that whatever is done is done in a way that respects our friends and our partners," he said last month on a visit to the country.

Brazil's IT policy secretary Virgilio Almeida has suggested that internet firms would have to operate data centers in the country, which would make them subject to local privacy laws.

Her decision to cancel (or officially, to postpone) the Washington visit will be seized upon by some as an act of petty nationalism.

Some Brazilian business leaders, worried by the precarious economic climate, will question the wisdom of antagonizing such an important business.

But the political pressure was greater still. There was fury in Brazil, not only at the revelation that the president's own conversations and communications may have been spied upon by the NSA but that US interests were allegedly involved in blatant economic espionage against major Brazilian interests, including Petrobras.

Dilma Rousseff will have been aware of the feelings of ordinary Brazilians had her Washington trip gone ahead.

The perception here in Brazil is that the Obama administration has yet to give an adequate response or an apology.

In addition, he said, the government might move to ensure that its own data about tax information and other sensitive subjects would be stored locally rather than in the cloud.

Last week a Brazilian official specifically named Facebook, Google and Microsoft as examples of companies that would have to change their practices, according to a report by the Reuters news agency.

The three companies are among those that have acknowledged handing over data about "national security matters" after legally binding requests from the US authorities.  Read more: