By Ben Tavener, Senior Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s political leaders are divided on President Dilma Rousseff’s new stance on how states share oil royalties. Last week her comments, which favored oil-producing states and warned against reneging on contracts that had already been signed, received a hostile reception from nearly 4,000 mayors gathered [...]
By Ben Tavener, Senior Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In just over a month, the UN’s biggest ever international event on sustainable development, Rio+20, is set to bring together global leaders in Brazil to agree on specific goals and actions. The conference is an important moment for Rio, hosting a major international event, [...]
By Ben Tavener, Senior Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has announced the names of those who will form the so-called “Comissão da Verdade” (Truth Commission) – a panel of former justice ministers, human rights secretaries, attorneys and social scientists set up to investigate the atrocities of the post-war and [...]
By Ben Tavener, Senior Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, has visited Brazil as part of a wider Latin American tour which also takes in Colombia and Chile. The visit, his first both to Brazil and Latin America in the role, was touted as an attempt to [...]
By Luke Milner, Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – At the nineteenth session of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on February 27, 2012, Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the President of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralymic Games Organizing Committee, spoke during a panel discussion on Sport and Human Rights. Nuzman emphasized [...]
By Sarah de Sainte Croix, Senior Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled the Ficha Limpa, (or “Clean Record”) anti-corruption law to be constitutional, announcing that it would be enforced for the upcoming municipal elections in October. The law – which prohibits politicians with criminal convictions or a record of [...]
By Ben Tavener, Senior Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A seventh minister of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s government has resigned amid accusations of corruption. Ministro das Cidades (Minister of Cities) Mário Negromonte has been accused of awarding public work contracts to companies which are financial supporting his party. He denies the allegations. Progressive [...]
By Ben Tavener, Senior Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Members of a newly-formed victims’ association for those killed in last week’s multiple building collapse in downtown Rio, which claimed the lives of at least seventeen people, have announced they are to include the City of Rio in the list of those to be [...]
By Ben Tavener, Senior Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Rio’s booming construction industry has been given a fearsome wake-up call after the collapse of three buildings – one twenty stories high – last Thursday evening on Avenida Treze de Maio, in downtown Rio, killed at least seventeen people. Questions are being asked as to [...]
By Ben Tavener, Senior Contributing Reporter RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – As Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff summoned her government to the annual ministerial meeting on Monday to take stock of the past year, and set out plans and goals for 2012, she must have been only too conscious of the balancing act her government will [...]
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