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Guide to Brazil

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

3 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

3 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

4 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

8 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

8 months ago • Euan Marshall
discovery brazil portugal history
Guide to Brazil

The real story behind Portugal’s “discovery” of Brazil

School books will tell you that Brazil was discovered by Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500. Records show the country had visited the new land years before

9 months ago • Renato Alves
investors visa brazil
Business

How to get a Brazilian investor visa

Brazil offers indefinite residence permits for foreigners who invest in Brazilian companies, or set up their own enterprise

10 months ago • Iure Pontes Vieira
How to become a Brazilian citizen
Guide to Brazil

How to become a Brazilian citizen

Migratory processes in Brazil are notoriously cumbersome and time-consuming, but the country's requirements for naturalization are fairly liberal

11 months ago • Iure Pontes Vieira
vice president for bolsonaro
Power

Bolsonaro’s quest for a running mate is less than straightforward

Selecting a vice presidential nominee is much more complex than it seems. Jair Bolsonaro will have to cater to his congressional allies, but he will also be careful not to empower anyone that could usurp his position

1 day ago • André Spigariol
President Jair Bolsonaro had hoped he would see a much-needed boost in popularity during a short stay in the hospital to treat a bowel obstruction — but the population didn't want to know
Power

Bolsonaro used health scare to garner sympathy. He failed

President Jair Bolsonaro had hoped he would see a much-needed boost in popularity during a short stay in the hospital to treat a bowel obstruction — but the population didn't want to know

6 days ago • André Spigariol
armed forces brazil
Power

The motivation behind Bolsonaro’s anti-vax messaging

The president has spent much of the pandemic minimizing the severity of Covid-19 and casting aspersions over vaccination, and this seems to have gained him credit among a key constituency: public security workers

7 days ago • Amanda Audi
china Ernesto Araújo during a World Trade Organization meeting in January 2021. Photo: Arthur Max/MRE
Power

China “penetrated” the Bolsonaro government, ex-Foreign Minister tells Bannon

Speaking to Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, Ernesto Araújo complained of China's continued influence in Brazil, with unproven claims that the Asian giant engages in "narco-socialism"

2 weeks ago • Amanda Audi and Euan Marshall
bolsonaro hospital
Power

Health issues could become Bolsonaro’s excuse to pull out of election

Sources from major conservative parties say that if Jair Bolsonaro doesn't get a popularity boost during his latest stint in the hospital, he could withdraw his candidacy from the 2022 election

2 weeks ago • André Spigariol
Retail underwhelming Black Friday
Insider

Retail figures highlight Brazil’s underwhelming 2021 Black Friday

3 days ago • Euan Marshall
industry confidence
Insider

Confidence levels within Brazilian industry at five-year low

3 days ago • Gustavo Ribeiro
budget Ciro Nogueira has served as the president's chief of staff since August 2021. Photo: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom/ABr
Insider

Big Center tightens grip over the federal budget

3 days ago • André Spigariol
service sector brazil
Insider

Service sector grows in November after two-month skid

3 days ago • Ana Ferraz
emergency rains climate
Insider

Over 700 Brazilian cities under a state of emergency in 2022

3 days ago • Lucas Berti
polls brazil
2022 Race

Electoral projections remain stable, with Lula in the lead

4 days ago • André Spigariol
pcc alckmin
2022 Race

Alckmin closer to Lula’s presidential slate

1 week ago • Lucas Berti
Jair Bolsonaro during his New Year's address to the nation. The president is suffering from an intestinal obstruction in a São Paulo hospital. Photo: Isac Nóbrega/PR
2022 Race

President Bolsonaro has intestinal obstruction, confirms hospital

2 weeks ago • Lucas Berti
Health concerns Bolsonaro
2022 Race

Health concerns raised as Bolsonaro visits medical clinic

1 month ago • TBR Newsroom
Ciro Gomes. Photo: BW Press/Shutterstock
2022 Race

Center-left presidential hopeful targeted by police operation

1 month ago • Janaína Camelo
The risks for inertial inflation in Brazil
Business

The risks for inertial inflation in Brazil

Coming in far higher than the government's targets, Brazil's double-digit 2021 inflation rate caused havoc throughout the country. We take a look ahead to this year to find out what we should expect from Brazil's consumer prices

3 days ago • Ana Ferraz
heineken brazil
Business

Heineken, Brazil, and the history of the human race

Major brewer Heineken scrapped its grand plans to build a massive factory in southeastern Brazil, as the planned location was adjacent to one of the country's most important archeological sites

1 week ago • Renato Alves
Galeão International Airport. Photo: Maarten Zeehandelaar/Shutterstock
Business

A tale of two airports in Rio de Janeiro

The centrally located Santos Dumont airport is set to be auctioned off to the private sector this year, but the Rio de Janeiro city government fears it will push Galeão International Airport into obscurity

1 week ago • Janaína Camelo
ipos reorganization
Business

Brazilian firms surfing corporate reorganization wave as IPOs dry up

Significant hikes to interest rates have throttled liquidity in the Brazilian stock market and dissuaded companies from going public. In the meantime, firms are eyeing reorganization as a means to expand abroad

2 weeks ago • Natália Scalzaretto
fiscal austerity brazil budget
Business

Brazil’s fiscal prospects to remain bleak through 2023

The Bolsonaro government's decision to breach federal spending cap rules and uncertainty surrounding the 2022 election leaves Brazil's fiscal outlook less than rosy for the coming years

2 weeks ago • Ana Ferraz
rocket SpaceX launch. Photo: ORBCOMM/Flickr
Tech

Tech Roundup: SpaceX launches first satellite by a Brazilian startup

The Brazilian Pion-BR1 satellite was sent into space this week, developed for less than USD 100,000 on the outskirts of São Paulo

2 days ago • Ana Ferraz
tax electric cars remote work
Tech

Tech Roundup: E-commerce tax worries state governments

A mix-up concerning e-commerce tax regulations could see state administrations miss out on billions in revenue, unless a speedy solution is found

1 week ago • Ana Ferraz
twitter fake news
Tech

Brazilians accuse Twitter of harboring fake news spreaders

Prosecutors have stepped in, demanding the platform explain why it has not set up tools to contain pandemic-related misinformation

1 week ago • Lucas Berti
Data Marketplace
Tech

Buying a Brazilian’s private data costs less than two cups of coffee

Out in the open, illegal website sells personal data on millions of Brazilians — and courts have been unable to get it shut down

2 weeks ago • Amanda Audi
sextechs pandemic
Tech

After pandemic boom, sextechs are breaking taboos in Brazil

Sales of vibrators doubled during the first five months of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil — but the country's erotic product sector goes far beyond sex toys

3 weeks ago • Ana Ferraz
civil servants bolsonaro
Podcast

Explaining Brazil #181: Bolsonaro picks a dangerous fight

Federal civil servants threaten to go on strike next week, which could cause a government shutdown just months from the presidential election

5 days ago • Gustavo Ribeiro
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

2 months 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 months 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

2 months 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?

2 months ago • Gustavo Ribeiro
surgery brazil
Society

Government slashes surgery reimbursements, leaving patients vulnerable

The Bolsonaro government has cut the reimbursement hospitals receive for performing surgical procedures on public health patients, causing backlogs for emergency treatment

4 days ago • Amanda Audi
Health center in the Amazon
Society

Why people in the Amazon die earlier than other Brazilians

Large distances and a lack of healthcare infrastructure meant the region’s residents already faced difficulties accessing services – and that was before the pandemic hit

2 weeks ago • Amanda Audi
Brazil loses USD 2.5 billion a year from Covid-19 deaths
Society

Brazil loses USD 2.5 billion a year from Covid-19 deaths

A study from think tank Fundação Getúlio Vargas attempted to measure the wealth of human and financial capital lost in Brazil during the pandemic, with over 600,000 deaths

3 weeks ago • Amanda Audi
aracy carvalho jewish
Society

The Brazilian known as the “Angel of Hamburg”

Working as a diplomatic clerk in Nazi Germany, Aracy de Carvalho bent the rules to grant Brazilian visas to Jewish people seeking to flee persecution and death

3 weeks ago • Renato Alves
gender violence in Brazil
Society

Community organizations play vital role in tackling gender violence in Brazil

A new study on femicide in Brazil shows strong awareness of the reality of gender-based violence – but a lot more action is needed

3 weeks ago • Constance Malleret
weather events extreme climate change
Environment

Extreme weather puts Brazil on alert in 2022

Intense floods in Bahia have caused deaths and displacements, while other parts of the country face severe droughts. Such extreme weather patterns are rapidly becoming the norm in Brazil

1 week ago • Lucas Berti
green new deal brazil
Environment

Brazil has its own Green New Deal. But can the country afford it?

Proposed by the opposition's House whip, the Brazilian Green New Deal has plenty going for it, but its price tag could be too steep for a country mired in fiscal uncertainty

2 weeks ago • Anna Lygia Rego
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

1 month 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 months 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

2 months ago • Rebeca Stefanini and Isabela Ojima
russia latin america
Latin America

Russia is quietly making moves to enlarge its influence in Latin America

Growing investment has been matched more recently by vaccine diplomacy, while the U.S.’s attention has been drawn elsewhere

13 hours ago • Lucas Berti
omicron latin america
Latin America

How the Omicron crisis unfolds in Latin America

Vaccines can't tame Omicron alone, and the new surge of Covid infections presents Latin America with many risks — for health and the economy

3 days ago • Lucas Berti
odebrecht Former Pemex boss Emilio Lozoya. Photo: Tanya Lara/Shutterstock
Latin America

Luck turns around for main informant in Mexico’s Odebrecht scandal

Emilio Lozoya, former head of state-owned oil giant Pemex, promised to point the finger at three former presidents, but now faces decades of jail time himself

5 days ago • Ignacio Portes
Latin America

Maduro hopes to become Venezuela’s Deng Xiaoping

Analysts see a pragmatic turn in Chavismo, one that is helping improve the trade and inflation situation — though dramatic problems remain after a decade of economic chaos

1 week ago • Ignacio Portes
The long and mostly failed history of price controls in Argentina
Latin America

The long and mostly failed history of price controls in Argentina

Though Peronists have sometimes seen short-term success in dictating prices to businesses, these measures have regularly foundered over the long term

2 weeks ago • Ignacio Portes
low-quality insecure jobs
Opinion

Brazil stuck in a rut of creating low-quality and insecure jobs

Undesirable pre-pandemic trends have kicked back in. The country is producing poorly paid and precarious jobs with little improvement foreseen on the horizon

5 days ago • Luiz Guilherme Schymura
President Bolsonaro speaks during an event to honor Civil Servants Day, in October 2021. Photo: Anderson Riedel/PR
Opinion

Bolsonaro’s gamble on civil servants sparked a public service crisis

President Bolsonaro had pledged raises for all federal public servants, but had to go back on his promise and reserve wage bumps for police officers. Security workers may be pleased, but other federal employees threaten revolt

6 days ago • Andre Pagliarini
bolsonaro supreme court pick
Opinion

Will Bolsonaro’s new Supreme Court pick be as loyal as he hopes?

Jair Bolsonaro selected André Mendonça to sit on the country's highest court due to his religious credentials — but history shows that high-court appointments often do not go the way Brazilian presidents intend

2 weeks ago • Andre Pagliarini
democracy bolsonaro
Opinion

The fight over the meaning of democracy

Attempts to re-signify democracy in China, the U.S., and Brazil demand the world's attention as we enter a potentially pivotal 2022

4 weeks ago • Beatriz Rey
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

1 month ago • Beatriz Rey
flights brazil omicron
Tourism

While Brazil dithers on vaccine requirements, flights keep arriving

The government has clashed against regulators over vaccine mandates. Meanwhile, dozens of flights arrived in Brazil from Omicron hotbeds

3 weeks ago • Janaína Camelo
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

3 months 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

6 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

6 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

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

3 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

3 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

4 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

8 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

8 months ago • Euan Marshall

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