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Natália Scalzaretto

@nascalzaretto

Natália Scalzaretto has worked for companies such as Santander Brasil and Reuters, where she covered news ranging from commodities to technology. Before joining The Brazilian Report, she worked as an editor for Trading News, the information division from the TradersClub investor community.

bolsonaro secret budget elections Bolsonaro pork-barreling influenced Brazil's municipal elections. Here’s how
Power

Bolsonaro pork-barreling influenced Brazil’s municipal elections. Here’s how

The federal government has overseen a spate of "rapporteur-designated grants," allowing lawmakers to allocate public money to projects in their constituencies — and the data suggests these funds swung local election results

2 days ago • André Spigariol
moro military officers
Power

Moro courting military officers upset with Bolsonaro

One of Bolsonaro's major support bases in the 2018 election were the heads of the Armed Forces. After years of strained relations with the president, challenger Sergio Moro is looking to win the hearts and minds of the military instead

2 days ago • Janaína Camelo
andré mendonça supreme court brazil
Power

Rooted in faith, Bolsonaro’s Supreme Court pick gets Senate nod

With André Mendonça confirmed as the Supreme Court's newest member, will he be the "extremely evangelical" justice Bolsonaro was looking for?

6 days ago • Janaína Camelo and André Spigariol
grant Senator Rogério Carvalho (left) voted with Jair Bolsonaro "in the name of Senate autonomy." Photo: Waldemir Barreto/SF/CC-BY 4.0
Power

Opposition lawmakers side with Bolsonaro to keep grant money a secret

Congress approved a half-hearted resolution, failing in its promise to provide transparency to secret budgetary grants allocated to lawmakers. Members of the opposition have benefited from these grants, and they broke ranks to vote with the Bolsonaro government

1 week ago • André Spigariol
far-right sara winter
Power

The Bolsonaro government colluded with far-right activists

Between instructions to "go after" the Supreme Court and legal protections, the government went out of its way to defend far-right groups

1 week ago • Amanda Audi and André Spigariol
interest rate selic
Insider

Brazil’s benchmark interest rate nears double digits

4 hours ago • Ana Ferraz
Accounts Court Eletrobras privatization plan
Insider

Accounts Court to analyze government’s “flawed” Eletrobras privatization plan

1 day ago • André Spigariol
Brazil's oil major Petrobras sells of three thermal power plants. Photo: Simon Mayer/Shutterstock
Insider

Petrobras sells three thermal power plants in Bahia

1 day ago • Ana Ferraz
beef cattle chinese ban
Insider

Beef exports down 47 percent in November as Chinese ban continues

2 days ago • Ana Ferraz
cities climate emergency
Insider

Six Brazilian cities facing climate emergency

2 days ago • Natália Scalzaretto
Senator Simone Tebet Photo: Roque de Sá/SF
2022 Race

Senator Simone Tebet launches 2022 presidential campaign

9 hours ago • Janaína Camelo and André Spigariol
debates presidential race
2022 Race

Under pressure, Bolsonaro lays groundwork to skip 2022 debates

2 weeks ago • Gustavo Ribeiro
psdb primaries
2022 Race

Social democrat primaries debacle gets even worse

2 weeks ago • Ana Ferraz
primaries social democrats
2022 Race

Brazilian social democrats get new voting app after primaries fiasco

2 weeks ago • Janaína Camelo
VP Hamilton Mourão. Photo: Bruno Batista/VPR
2022 Race

VP Mourão considering run for Rio governor

2 weeks ago • Gustavo Ribeiro
vale indigenous land
Business

Vale’s failed promises on mining in indigenous lands

Vale recently promised a complete halt on mining adjacent to indigenous lands. However, the company has not kept its word

1 week ago • Renato Alves
football arab money
Business

Brazilian football eyes up Gulf money as corporate ownership becomes possible

For the longest time, Brazilian football clubs have been private members' clubs with elected presidents. But a new law will allow them to become companies — and woo big bucks from the Middle East

2 weeks ago • Ana Ferraz and Euan Marshall
energy 2022 candidates
Business

Candidates for 2022 must address Brazil’s energy crisis

This year's water crisis has laid much of the country's energy vulnerabilities bare, and the electricity sector is adamant that the 2022 election campaign must contain a broad debate on the industry's future

2 weeks ago • Janaína Camelo and Euan Marshall
Passion fruit field in Petrolina, Pernambuco. Photo: Alf Ribeiro/Shutterstock
Business

The passion for passion fruit goes beyond Brazil’s borders

Among Brazil's most-loved summer fruits, the country's passion fruits are also sought after abroad for their medicinal and cosmetic properties

2 weeks ago • Renato Alves
Brazil continues selling arms to conflict zones, violating UN treaty
Business

Brazil continues selling arms to conflict zones, violating UN treaty

Brazil is a signatory of the UN's Arms Trade Treaty, but data shows that the country's major weapons and munitions manufacturers are still selling arms to war zones and places with poor human rights records — and in astonishing quantities

3 weeks ago • André Spigariol
STEM tech workers
Tech

Tech Roundup: the ICT labor shortage in Brazil

The most important news in tech and innovation in Brazil. This week: labor shortages, instant payments, and taxes on the gig economy

5 days ago • Ana Ferraz
Delivery app drivers around Brazil have staged protests and walkouts over working conditions. Photo: Shutterstock
Tech

Tech Roundup: Rio enters the delivery app business

The main news about tech and innovation in Brazil. This week: Rio's delivery app, data privacy, and Black Friday

2 weeks ago • Ana Ferraz
blockchain
Tech

Tech Roundup: Government adopts blockchain technology

This week. E-commerce is big in Brazil, but online shoppers still tend to be richer. The government makes the use of blockchain in documents official. Brazilian startup aims to become the ‘Apple of urban agriculture’

3 weeks ago • Ana Ferraz
5g doria
Tech

Eyeing the presidency, São Paulo governor makes push for 5G antennas

São Paulo Governor João Doria makes a push for 5G technology, as a way to beef up his résumé ahead of his party's primaries

3 weeks ago • Janaína Camelo
patent innovation
Tech

Tech Roundup: Patent delays deter innovation in Brazil

The main news about tech and innovation in Brazil. This week: patent delays, instant payments, real estate startups

4 weeks ago • Ana Ferraz
Jair Bolsonaro and Chief of Staff Ciro Nogueira. Photo: José Dias/PR
Podcast

Explaining Brazil #180: A new home for Bolsonaro

After much comings and goings, Bolsonaro has found a new party, in an arrangement that will help shape Brazil's political landscape for 2022 and beyond

1 week ago • Gustavo Ribeiro
vaccination brazil
Podcast

Explaining Brazil #179: Brazil’s vaccination success

This time last year, Brazilian citizens were unsure if they would ever get vaccinated against the coronavirus. Now, the country has immunized 80 percent of its adult population

2 weeks ago • Gustavo Ribeiro
javier milei
Podcast

Explaining Brazil #178: Argentina’s far-right lion

Javier Milei: vaccine skeptic, climate change denier, libertarian economist … and now, one of the biggest political stars in Argentina

3 weeks ago • Euan Marshall
cop26 brazil bolsonaro
Podcast

Explaining Brazil #177: What Brazil did at COP26

Brazil showed up in the west of Scotland ready to listen and compromise with the international community. But were its commitments enough?

4 weeks ago • Gustavo Ribeiro
kast chile far-right
Podcast

Explaining Brazil #176: Will Chile get Kast away?

Seen as Chile's answer to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, José Antonio Kast has been consistently rising in polls since early in September. Could he win on November 21?

1 month ago • Euan Marshall
Buffalos starved on São Paulo farm in worst animal cruelty case in recent Brazilian memory
Society

Buffalos starved on São Paulo farm in worst animal cruelty case in recent Brazilian memory

A landowner had given up on raising livestock and planned to plant soy instead, purposefully starving his animals

2 days ago • Amanda Audi
bolsonaro carnival
Society

Once a denialist, Bolsonaro now uses Covid to cancel Carnival

President Bolsonaro is using Covid-19 as an excuse to call for next year's Carnival to be canceled. But his reasons for doing so are less than noble, and expose massive hypocrisy

3 days ago • Amanda Audi
enem exam
Society

Bolsonaro cuts Madonna, condoms, and coups from university exam

The 2021 edition of national university entrance exam Enem took place this weekend under a cloud, amid claims that the Bolsonaro government sought to censor "controversial" questions

1 week ago • Amanda Audi
drug drugs policy united nations
Society

Brazil’s drug policy is desperately lacking — but not because the UN says so

Brazil ranked dead last in a study analyzing drug policies in 30 countries. However, while Brazil's approach to drugs is poor, it isn't for the reasons highlighted by the ranking

3 weeks ago • Amanda Audi
modern slavery
Society

Over 19,000 people rescued from modern slavery in Brazil since 2010

A recent raid at a farm in Goiás rescued 166 people from working conditions analogous to slavery, including children and teenagers. Offending companies are put on a "dirty list"

3 weeks ago • Janaína Camelo
river basin farming mining
Environment

Major Brazilian river basin under threat from farming, mining, and climate change

The Tocantins-Araguaia river basin is an integral part of its surrounding region, but the expansion of agriculture and extractive activities has left it vulnerable to profound environmental changes

6 days ago • Renato Alves
esg climate commitments corporations
Environment

Brazil’s ESG commitments: ask corporations, not the government

On the whole, major Brazilian companies seem to be on board with a more sustainable approach to business. Customer engagement and social norms are also pushing the ESG agenda

2 weeks ago • Anna Lygia Rego
climate litigation
Environment

Courts become a new ally in fight against climate change

Climate change litigation is becoming more and more common around the world, and the trend is gaining ground in Brazil

1 month ago • Rebeca Stefanini and Isabela Ojima
budget Brazilian agriculture is set to face increased scrutiny and altered processes amid announcement of international climate funding. Photo: PlinioMiranda/Shutterstock
Environment

With strings attached for Brazilian agro, rich nations agree to fund forest conservation

The so-called Global Forest Finance Pledge will provide billions in funding to boost climate initiatives in developing countries, but there's no such thing as a free lunch for the Brazilian government, with Big Agro set to face changes

1 month ago • André Spigariol
cop26 climate change
Environment

Brazil to unveil new, but unambitious climate goals at COP26

While the country's proposed new climate pledge raises emissions reduction goals, it does not go nearly far enough — and may even allow Brazil to pollute more

1 month ago • André Spigariol
argentina courts kirchner macri
Latin America

The legal battles between Cristina Kirchner and Mauricio Macri in Argentina

Both former presidents are at the heart of multiple criminal investigations, often for political reasons, with each side using corruption allegations as weapons against one another

3 days ago • Ignacio Portes
honduras elections Xiomara Castro delivers her final campaign speech in San Pedro Sula. Photo: SOPA Images Limited/Alamy Live News
Latin America

Left poised to reclaim power in Honduras after 2009 coup

Xiomara Castro’s landslide victory ends 12 years of conservative dominance following the ousting of her husband, Manuel Zelaya

1 week ago • Ignacio Portes
Mario Vargas Llosa
Latin America

Mario Vargas Llosa, the immortal

On the back of his induction into L'Académie Française, we look back at the life and career of legendary Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa

2 weeks ago • Gustavo Ribeiro
venezuela election elections
Latin America

Opposition competes in Venezuelan elections, but Maduro wins again

Doubts over the fairness of gubernatorial races persist, but the opposition missed a chance to challenge Nicolás Maduro with it still riven by internal divisions

2 weeks ago • Ignacio Portes
kast supporters
Latin America

Kast and Boric reach decisive presidential runoff in Chile

Polarized election confirms the anti-establishment sentiment in Chile, as traditional parties fall to fourth and fifth place

2 weeks ago • Ignacio Portes
party system senate
Opinion

How the ‘secret budget’ in Congress harms the party system

A pair of curious votes in the Senate showed how Brazil's so-called "secret budget" is making political parties even weaker — with opposition lawmakers siding with the government to preserve pork-barreling tools

13 hours ago • Beatriz Rey
inflation central bank
Opinion

Brazil’s Central Bank is the world’s most hawkish. So why do inflation expectations keep rising?

Trying to hold down consumer prices, the Central Bank has been furiously increasing benchmark interest rates, in a trend unlikely to end any time soon. But pursuing unrealistic inflation goals could spell disaster

2 weeks ago • Luciano Sobral
House Speaker Arthur Lira. Photo: J. Batista/CD/CC-BY 4.0
Opinion

House speakers hold too much power in Brazil, and that’s not changing any time soon

Arthur Lira is among the most powerful figures in the country's politics. And he would have to sign off on any attempt to reduce his vast and often damaging influence

2 weeks ago • Beatriz Rey
liberal party valdemar costa neto
Opinion

Bolsonaro’s new party is a monument to Brazil’s political limitations

The Liberal Party is perhaps an odd choice for Jair Bolsonaro, given the party's reputation of corruption and political cronyism

4 weeks ago • Beatriz Rey
climate negotiations eu
Opinion

Climate negotiations with Bolsonaro a lost cause

Brazil is heading into an election year in which environmental issues are unlikely to figure prominently

4 weeks ago • Andre Pagliarini
jaguar pantanal ecotourism brazil
Tourism

Once despised, jaguars become a symbol of ecotourism in Brazil’s Pantanal

As cattle ranching became widespread in the region surrounding the Pantanal wetland, jaguars were seen as pests. Now, some farmers are converting their properties into nature reserves and reaping the profits

1 month ago • Ryan Biller
tourism Empty tables in a tropical oceanfront bar and restaurant during the Covid-19 pandemic. Salvador, Bahia. Photo: David Fadul/Shutterstock
Tourism

The never-ending taxiing of Brazil’s tourism sector

Tourism was one of the areas hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Now, even with vaccination coverage improving, a series of factors are standing in the way of any meaningful recovery

4 months ago • Ana Ferraz
shark attacks recife
Tourism

Recife’s shark problem: too many questions and too few answers

The northeastern city of Recife is famous for its beaches, but locals and tourists are warned to stay away from the water, due to the risk of shark attacks

5 months ago • Renato Alves
arrudatitan maximus monte alto brazil dinosaur
Tourism

Meet the Arrudatitan: São Paulo’s very own dinosaur

First discovered in 1997, the specimen was originally believed to be a relative of the Aeolosaurus, but new research shows it came from a completely different genus, exclusive to São Paulo

7 months ago • Renato Alves
Joan Lowell hollywood cerrado
Tourism

When Hollywood royalty traded it all for a Brazilian farm

In the mid-20th century, a group of Hollywood movie stars gave up the glitz and glamor to become farmers in the Brazilian state of Goiás

8 months ago • Renato Alves
october 12 People light candles to celebrate the day of Our Lady of Aparecida. Photo taken on Oct. 12, 2016. Photo: Nelson Antoine/Shutterstock
Guide to Brazil

October 12: a celebration of Brazil’s patron saint

According to legend, fishermen were inundated with fish to catch soon after finding an image of a black Virgin Mary. Since then, Our Lady of Aparecida has become Brazil's most popular and important saints

2 months ago • Euan Marshall
Rio's Christ the Redeemer. Photo: Ricardo Cohen/Shutterstock
Guide to Brazil

The story of Christ the Redeemer, 90 years old

Brazil's most popular tourist attraction, the story of how Christ the Redeemer came about is a fascinating one. This week's Rio celebrates the statue's 90th anniversary

2 months ago • Renato Alves
brazilian inquisition
Guide to Brazil

The lesser-known story of the Brazilian Inquisition

After terrorizing much of Spain and Portugal, the inquisition spread to many of these countries' colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas — including to Brazil

2 months ago • Renato Alves
Paulo Mendes da rocha
Guide to Brazil

Paulo Mendes da Rocha leaves behind incomparable legacy in Brazilian architecture

Among the most influential modernists in Brazilian history, Paulo Mendes da Rocha designed many of São Paulo's most famous tourist attractions and left a legacy of devoted followers

7 months ago • Renato Alves
The Valongo Wharf was an active slave port for 20 years, during which up to 1 million African slaves landed in Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Halley Pacheco de Oliveira/WikiCommons
Guide to Brazil

The forced immigration of the slave trade in Brazil

Brazil took in more African slaves than any other country during the Atlantic slave trade, and the effects of this brutal period can still be felt today

7 months ago • Euan Marshall

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