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Protesters accuse interfaith event at São Paulo cathedral of left-wing activism SÃO PAULO - An interreligious ceremony held at the cathedral of São Paulo to support the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon was accused by critics as a cover for left-wing activism inside the Church.The Sept. 30 event was organized by the inter-religious coalition Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Front for Justice and Peace. It was attended by Cardinal Odilio Scherer, the Archbishop of São Paulo, as well as Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the president of the Pan-Amazon Ecclesial Network, who will be the relator general for the synod.Leaders of other...

Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro is heading for a sweeping victory in Brazil's presidential election, according to exit polls. The polls suggest Mr Bolsonaro has 56% of the votes and his rival from the left-wing Workers Party, Fernando Haddad, has 44%. Mr Bolsonaro campaigned on a promise to eradicate corruption and to drive down Brazil's high crime levels. The election campaign has been deeply divisive.

The far-right Brazilian populist Jair Bolsonaro has secured a resounding victory in the first-round of his country’s presidential election, but fallen just short of the majority required to avoid a second-round run-off. After a campaign as improbable and electrifying as any Brazilian telenovela – although infinitely more consequential for the future of one of the world’s largest and most diverse democracies – Bolsonaro secured 46.93% of votes - with 94% of all votes counted. second-placed candidate, the leftist Workers’ party Fernando Haddad, won 28% of the vote, according to Brazil’s superior electoral court, the TSE. Behind him came the Democratic...

He shocks many Western liberals, and some of his rhetoric on women and gays is certainly extreme. Still, Jair Bolsonaro's rise in the Brazilian polls isn't hard to understand. Because he is focused on three issues that now carry outsized concern in most Brazilian minds: reducing crime, countering corruption, and boosting the economy. Correspondingly, the simplest issue in Bolsonaro's favor is that which was in Donald Trump's favor in 2016: popular anger over a sense of wasted potential. It's an easy case to make in Brazil today. That nation has vast natural resources, a comparatively well-educated population, but also pathetic...

Under a President Donald Trump, the Republican Party would become a different one, a broad, populist coalition focused on workers who have gone too long without a raise and on social programs the party establishment has long seen as anathema to its long-term success. “Love the question,” Trump said in response to a question from Bloomberg Businessweek's Joshua Green in a profile of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus published Thursday. The article bears the headline, "How to Get Trump Elected When He’s Wrecking Everything You Built." “Five, 10 years from now — different party. You’re going to have a...

Supporters of the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff took a commanding lead in a ballot in the lower house of Congress on Sunday that could hasten the end of 13 years of leftist Workers Party rule in Latin America's biggest economy. With 272 votes cast, 210 members of Congress had voted in favor of Rousseff's impeachment and 62 voted against or abstained. The Datafolha polling group projected Rousseff's defeat. Rousseff's opponents needs votes from 342 of the 513 members of the chamber to send her for trial in the Senate on charges of manipulating budgetary accounts to support her...

Hundreds of thousands (millions) of Brazilians flooded the streets on Sunday in the biggest ever protests calling for President Dilma Rousseff's removal, reflecting rising popular anger that could encourage Congress to impeach the leftist leader. The demonstrations were the latest in a wave of anti-government rallies that lost momentum late last year but have regained strength as a sweeping corruption investigation nears Rousseff's inner circle. Poor Brazilians, who form the base of the ruling Workers' Party support, have not turned out in great numbers in recent protests. But their support for Rousseff has faded as unemployment rises and inflation climbs.

Brazilian police Wednesday arrested the government's leader in the Senate for allegedly obstructing the investigation into a corruption scandal at state-owned oil company Petrobras. Supreme Court Justice Teori Zavascki authorized the arrest of Sen. Delcidio do Amaral of the ruling Worker's Party after examining evidence allegedly showing that the senator had interfered in the investigation of the massive corruption-kickback schemed at the oil company. Under Brazilian law, the Supreme Court must approve any investigation of legislators or top officials in the executive branch. Any criminal charges or trials of such figures must also must be approved and judged by the...

A special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has left Pyongyang for Russia to discuss ways to improve trade and political ties. Choe Ryong Hae, a senior official in the ruling Workers’ Party and one of Kim’s close associates, left Pyongyang on Monday. He is scheduled to stay in Russia until Nov. 24. …

The Obama administration's response to the Congressional Budget Office's prediction that Obamacare will cause 2.5 million fewer Americans to work in the coming years is an opportunity for Republicans to seize the moral high ground on the issue of work. Rather than dispute the CBO's analysis -- which would have been awkward, as the White House has touted CBO's predictions in the past -- the administration is spinning the jobs loss as a kind of liberation. No longer tied down to the pesky need to earn a salary, some Americans will be able to follow their bliss. The is part...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 21, 2011 (IPS) - The first black president of the United States visited the first woman president of Brazil: their meeting resulted in modest progress in bilateral relations, but a bitter taste could not be avoided over the announcement, in Brazil, of the U.S.-led air attack on Libya. On Saturday, Obama announced in Brasilia the launch of air strikes against the Libyan regime, in line with the Mar. 17 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which ordered Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to call a ceasefire against rebels demanding his resignation, and authorised the use of force...

Dilma Rousseff, from the Workers Party, seems to be opening a significant advantage over the other candidates in the race for the Brazilian presidency. On Tuesday, August 17, the Vox Populi Institute released a poll for TV Band and the web portal, iG, showing Dilma 16 percentage points ahead of her nearest rival, José Serra from the PSDB (Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy).

BRASILIA, Brazil - Impeachment proceedings began Wednesday against a federal legislator — a former top Cabinet official — in connection with a bribery scandal that has rocked President Luiz Inacio da Silva's Workers' Party, which prided itself on its ethical behavior. Rep. Jose Dirceu, who stepped down as Silva's chief of staff and returned to his seat in Congress in June, stands accused of overseeing an alleged scheme where the government paid lawmakers for their support on key votes. Dirceu again proclaimed his innocence Wednesday, saying "I'm going to defend myself, because I committed no crime." Dirceu has a week...

LulaWatchFocusing on the Latin American Left"The Lula government, as we knew it, is over." This is how an Epoca magazine editorial summarized Brazil's current political crisis. This undeniably serious crisis raises many questions about the future of the president and his administration.Veja magazine says that "Lula is trying to save the government and his legacy" while several members of the government are calling this time a "period of political agitation" in a climate of apprehension and instability.Until recently, this crisis seemed to have peaked with the resignation of the president's chief of staff, José Dirceu, usually seen as the government's...

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A vote buying scandal in Brazil's Congress was financed by state and private companies, a Brazilian lawmaker alleged in an interview published Saturday. Rep. Roberto Jefferson said the money was collected from the private and public companies by a man who works with Delubio Soares, the Workers Party treasurer accused of making the reported payoffs. Last week Jefferson claimed that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's Workers Party made monthly payments of about $12,000 to lawmakers in exchange for votes. In the exclusive interview with the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, Jefferson did not name the...

For the past three years, an annual conference called the World Social Forum has been the biggest international gathering of radicals on earth, attended by all the leaders of the world left. Labor unions, Communist parties, non-governmental organizations, anti-globalization activists, anti-American 'peace' groups, multiple heads of state, and the representatives of armed guerilla insurgencies all gather yearly at Porto Alegre, Brazil, to make new connections and plan for the future. While the organizers of the World Social Forum claim the event is a "open meeting place" for those interested in building "a planetary society centered on the human person,"...

Here is a story you’re unlikely to read in the spate of press attacks on Wal-Mart these days: When Hartford, Connecticut, tore down a blighted housing project, city officials hatched an innovative plan to redevelop the land: lure Wal-Mart there, entice other retailers with the promise of being near the discount giant, and then use the development’s revenues to build new housing. Wal-Mart, after some convincing, agreed, and city officials and neighborhood residents celebrated a big win — better shopping, more jobs, and new housing in one of America’s poorest cities. But then, out of nowhere, outsiders claiming to represent...

Even after 33 years, the Communist Daily World (CDW) articles covering the activities of John Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against the War in early 1971 remain shocking. The Communist world understood clearly then what John Kerry even today tries to deny. The anti-war movement typified by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War was not simply a protest movement making a statement that the war in Vietnam was being wrongly waged in the sense that another military strategy might be more successful. No, the VVAW at its core was avowedly anti-American, willing to propagate lies about "war crimes" allegedly committed by...

For nearly five decades the left has been trying to impose a socialist and confiscatory land reform on Brazil. From the beginning, the so-called Catholic left, and particularly the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB), has been the leading proponents and the most important driving force of that policy. With strong links to this Catholic left, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made land reform one of its main goals. For this purpose it designated Miguel Rossetto from the Workers Party's most radical wing as the Minister of Land Reform. The party also gave the government posts...