Dilma Rousseff
Dilma Vana Rousseff is a Brazilian economist and politician who served as the 36th President of Brazil, holding the position from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016. She was the first woman to hold the Brazilian presidency and had served as Chief of Staff to former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2005 to 2010; the daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist in her youth and after the 1964 coup d'état joined left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was captured and jailed from 1970 to 1972. After her release, Rousseff rebuilt her life in Porto Alegre with Carlos Araújo, her husband for 30 years, they both helped to found the Democratic Labour Party in Rio Grande do Sul, participated in several of the party's electoral campaigns. She became the treasury secretary of Porto Alegre under Alceu Collares, Secretary of Energy of Rio Grande do Sul under both Collares and Olívio Dutra.
In 2000, after an internal dispute in the Dutra cabinet, she left the PDT and joined the Workers' Party. In 2002, Rousseff became an energy policy advisor to presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who on winning the election invited her to become his minister of energy. Chief of Staff José Dirceu resigned in 2005 in a political crisis triggered by the Mensalão corruption scandal. Rousseff became chief of staff and remained in that post until 31 March 2010, when she stepped down to run for president, she was elected in a run-off on 31 October 2010, beating Brazilian Social Democracy Party candidate José Serra. On 26 October 2014 she won a narrow second-round victory over Aécio Neves of the PSDB. Impeachment proceedings against Rousseff began in the Chamber of Deputies on 3 December 2015. On 12 May 2016, the Senate of Brazil suspended President Rousseff's powers and duties for up to six months or until the Senate decided whether to remove her from office or to acquit her. Vice President Michel Temer assumed her powers and duties as Acting President of Brazil during her suspension.
On 31 August 2016, the Senate voted 61–20 to impeach, finding Rousseff guilty of breaking budgetary laws and removing her from office. On 5 August 2018, the PT launched Rousseff's candidacy for a seat in the Federal Senate, from the state of Minas Gerais. However, despite leading in the polls in the run-up to the election, Rousseff finished fourth in the final vote and was not elected. Dilma Vana Rousseff was born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil, on 14 December 1947, to Bulgarian lawyer and entrepreneur Pedro Rousseff and schoolteacher Dilma Jane da Silva, her father was born in Gabrovo, in the Principality of Bulgaria, was a friend of the Nobel Prize-nominated Bulgarian poet Elisaveta Bagryana. As an active member of the Bulgarian Communist Party, banned in 1924, Petar Rusev fled Bulgaria in 1929 to escape political persecution, he arrived in Brazil in the 1930s widowed, but soon moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. He returned to Brazil several years settling in São Paulo, where he succeeded in business.
Pétar Rúsev adapted his first name to the last to French. During a trip to Uberaba, he met Dilma Jane da Silva, a young schoolteacher born in Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro, raised in Minas Gerais, where her parents were ranchers; the two married and settled in Belo Horizonte, where they had three children: Igor, Dilma Vana, Zana Lúcia. Igor Rousseff, Dilma's elder brother, is a lawyer. Pedro Rousseff was a contractor for Mannesmann steel in addition to building and selling real estate; the family lived in a large house, had three servants, maintained European habits. The children had a classical education with French lessons. After they overcame the initial resistance of the community to accepting foreigners, the family attended traditional clubs and schools. Rousseff was enrolled in preschool at the Colégio Izabela Hendrix and primary school at Colégio Nossa Senhora de Sion, a girls' boarding school run by nuns, who taught in French. Encouraged by her father, Rousseff acquired an early taste for reading.
He died in 1962. In 1964 Rousseff left the conservative Colégio Sion and joined the Central State High School, a co-ed public school where the students protested against the dictatorship, established after the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état. In 1967 she joined Worker's Politics, an organization founded in 1961 as a spinoff of the Brazilian Socialist Party, its members found. Rousseff joined the second group. According to Apolo Heringer Lisboa, leader of Colina in 1968 who taught Marxism to Rousseff in high school, she chose armed struggle after reading Revolution inside the Revolution by Régis Debray, a French intellectual who had moved to Cuba and become a friend of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Heringer says that "the book inflamed everybody, including Dilma". During that period, Rousseff met a brother-in-arms five years her senior. Galeno, who had joined POLOP in 1962, had served in the Army, participating in the uprising of sailors against the military coup, for which he had
Brazil
Brazil the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the fifth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, its most populated city is São Paulo; the federation is composed of the union of the 26 states, the Federal District, the 5,570 municipalities. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers, it borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats; this unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system; the ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Brazil is considered an advanced emerging economy. It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, eight and PPP measures, it is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years. It is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country, with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great or a middle power in international affairs. On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power and a potential superpower by several analysts. Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Union of South American Nations, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, it is that the word "Brazil" comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.
In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders in return for assorted European consumer goods; the official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross", but European sailors and merchants called it the "Land of Brazil" because of the brazilwood trade. The popular appellation eclipsed and supplanted the official Portuguese name; some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots". In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama"; this was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".
Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years. The earliest pottery found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago; the pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture. The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 800 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, complex social formations such as chiefdoms. Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people semi-nomadic who subsisted on hunting, fishing and migrant agriculture; the indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups. The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, there were many subdivisions of the other gro
2018 Brazil truck drivers' strike
The 2018 Brazil truck drivers' strike called the diesel crisis, was a strike of self-employed truck drivers that began on 21 May 2018. The protesters demanded a decrease of the price of diesel, exemption from certain tolls, as well as a legal and tax reform related to truck driving. Oil prices increased in Brazil after a 2016 policy change that made oil prices float with international prices; the nationwide paralysis of roads caused a shortage of food and oil across Brazil, with long queues of vehicles to gas stations. Starting in late 2016, the price of oil in Brazil rose due to the termination of policies coming from Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff's terms in office. Under Michel Temer's administration, the prior policy of pricing domestically sold oil lower than the international price was changed by the state-owned oil company, Petrobrás, to sell at the international market price. Furthermore, the value of the dollar relative to the Brazilian real rose in the weeks before the strike, driving up the domestic cost of oil in the local currency.
On 18 May 2018, truckers and Abcam threatened to strike if the government did not reduce the tax burden on diesel. With no response by the government, the strike began on 21 May. On 18 May, truckers announced a strike starting on 21 May if the government did not halt increases in diesel prices; the following day, Petrobrás announced a price increase of 0.8% for diesel and 1.34% for gas, based on the increase of international oil prices and the company's new policy. On 20 May, the Federal Justice prohibited any blockade of the federal highways in Paraná; this move was made by the General Counsel for the Federal Government on request of the Federal Highway Police. During the first day of the strike, some highways were or blocked. In some areas, tires were burned by truckers and in others the truckers stayed on the road side. By the end of the evening, president Michel Temer had a meeting with members of his cabinet. Airports warned of potential future problems with fuel, car companies such as Ford and Fiat announced problems related to the strike.
In order to deal with the strike, the Minister of Public Security Raul Jungmann announced the creation of a crisis cabinet. On 23 May, airports started to suffer a lack of fuel; as a result of trucks halting fuel deliveries to gas stations and food deliveries to markets and other establishments, prices started to rise. In Recife, gasoline reached the price of R$8.99 and in Rio de Janeiro a bag of potatoes could cost as much as R$500. The same day, Abcam announced it would let trucks with livestock and medicine pass through the blockades until Friday of the same week. Temer asked for a truce for two or three days so the problem could be solved and Petrobrás announced that it would make diesel 10% cheaper for fifteen days. According to the company's president, Pedro Parente, the measure was taken exceptionally so the government could talk to the truckers during the fifteen days. One day gasoline reached R$10 in the Federal District. During the same day, fewer buses were in circulation and hospitals started to have small problems due to the lack of fuel and other equipment.
The day was marked by the announcement by the Chief of Staff, Eliseu Padilha, that the government had reached an agreement with representatives of the truckers after a six-hour meeting. The agreement involved the strike being suspended for fifteen days and Jungmann said there are indications that the strike was a lockout and that the government would look into the situation. Despite the announcement of the deal on the previous day, Abcam did not adhere to it and the trucker's strike continued. Airports started to run out of fuel and cancel flights, federal universities started to suspend classes and the lack of fuel limited the circulation of ambulances in some states and caused surgeries that were not emergencies to be cancelled in states like Santa Catarina. Temer criticized the truckers who continued in the strike, calling them part of a "radical minority", announced he would send troops to end the roadblocks made by the truckers. Meanwhile, the Attorney General of Brazil asked the Supreme Federal Court to declare the strike illegal.
The Supreme Federal Court authorized the use of force and imposed a fine to those who refused to end the roadblocks By the end of the evening, the government claimed to have removed 45% of all roadblocks. The cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre, as well as the state of Pernambuco, declared a state of emergency. On Saturday, 26 May, Minister Carlos Marun stated that the government will start to fine any company that does not obey the agreement made to unblock the highways in the amount of R$100,000 per hour, said that it believes that the event is not a strike but a lockout; the state of Mato Grosso declared a state of emergency. Surgeries that are not urgent were cancelled all across the state of Rio de Janeiro. By the end of the afternoon, President Temer asked Henrique Meirelles to discuss measures to contain the strike with an special emphasis on reducing the tax over diesel to zero. A group of autonomous truckers was called by the government to meet that day; the city of Teresina declared a state of emergency.
By the end of the day, Temer made a public pronouncement listing the measures that would be taken: reduction of diesel's price by R$0.46 per litre.
Operation Car Wash
Operation Car Wash is an ongoing criminal investigation being carried out by the Federal Police of Brazil, Curitiba Branch, judicially commanded by, Judge Sérgio Moro, Judge Luiz Antonio Bonat. A money laundering investigation, it has expanded to cover allegations of corruption at the state-controlled oil company Petrobras, where executives accepted bribes in return for awarding contracts to construction firms at inflated prices; this criminal "system" is known as "Operação Lava Jato" – "Operation Car Wash" – because it was first uncovered at a car wash in Brasilia, or "Petrolão" because the scandal involved the state-controlled oil company. The operation has included more than a thousand warrants for search and seizure and preventive detention, plea bargain coercive measures, with the aim of ascertaining the extent of a money laundering scheme suspected of moving more than R$30 billion. Operation Car Wash is the largest corruption scandal in the history of Latin America; the name was chosen because the alleged ring used a currency exchange and money transfer service at the Posto da Torre and lava jato in Brasília to move illicit payments.
At least eleven other countries in Latin America, were involved, the Brazilian company, was implicated. The corruption scandal grew in part because it challenged the impunity of politicians and business leaders that had prevailed until then. Structural corruption in the political and economic system, no longer tolerated or accepted, was now being investigated and resulted in some criminal charges; this change was made possible because of the independence of the judiciary. Judge Sergio Moro's Operation Car Wash investigation indicted untouchable politicians, including the former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, it succeeded because of ‘rewarded collaboration’ and the strategy of first targeting businesspeople using their statements against politicians. The initial accusation came from businessman Hermes Magnus in 2008, who reported an attempt to launder money through his company, Dunel Indústria e Comércio, a manufacturer of electronic components. Ensuing investigations culminated in the identification of four large criminal rings, headed by: Carlos Habib Chater Alberto Youssef Nelma Kodama Raul Henrique SrourInvestigation at first focused on the four black-market currency dealers and improper payments to Alberto Youssef by companies that won contracts at the Petrobras Abreu & Lima Refinery.
After they discovered that "doleiro" Alberto Youssef had acquired a Range Rover Evoque for Paulo Roberto Costa, a former director of Petrobras, the investigation expanded nationwide. Costa agreed. A newly adopted law introduced'rewarded collaboration' in Brazil, or sentence reductions when the defendant cooperated. Costa's submission illuminated the way political parties controlled the state-owned oil company Petrobras, it led to a wave of arrests. Fernando Soares known as "Fernando Baiano," a businessman and lobbyist, was the connection between the governing parties Workers’ Party and PMDB and the major Brazilian construction firms. After Costa and Soares, many more agreed to collaborate with the prosecution and from 2014 and February 2016, the Federal Public Prosecutors formulated 37 criminal charges against 179 people of politicians and businessmen. In December 2017 nearly three hundred people had been accused of crimes in the scandal. After Marcelo Odebrecht, grandson of the company founder, was sentenced to 19 years in prison, he and other Odebrecht executives were willing to act as witnesses and to give information about the overall corruption scheme, because of the sentence reduction incentives of the ‘Rewarded Collaboration’ Law.
Odebrecht had a secret branch used for illegal payments in several Latin American countries, from Hugo Chávez in Venezuela to Ricardo Martinelli in Panama. Odebrecht was charged with fines totalling $2.6 billion by authorities of Brazil and the United States after they admitted bribing officials in twelve countries for around $788 million. Costa and Youssef entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors and the scope of the investigation widened to nine major Brazilian construction firms: as well as politicians involved with Petrobras. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who chaired the board of Petrobras from 2003 to 2010, denied knowledge of any wrongdoing; the Brazilian Supreme Court authorized the investigation of 48 current and former legislators, including former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in March 2016. Eduardo Cunha, president of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil from 2015 to 2016, was accused of taking US$40 million in bribes and hiding funds in secret bank accounts, he is presently incarcerated.
On 19 January 2017, a small plane carrying Supreme Court Justice Teori Zavascki crashed into the sea near the tourist city of Paraty in the state of Rio de Janeiro, killing the magistrate and four other people. Zavascki had been handling Operation Car Wash corruption trials. A Miami Herald report noted in September 2017 that when Operation Car Wash began, fewer than 10,000 electronic monitoring bracelets were in use to enforce home detentions sentences. Petrobras delayed reporting its annual financial results for 2014, in April 2015 released "audited financial statements" showing $2.1 billion in bribes and a total of $17 billion in write-downs due to graft and overvalued assets, which the company characterized as a "conservative" estimate. Had the repor
2014 Brazilian general election
General elections were held in Brazil on 5 October 2014 to elect the President, the National Congress, state governors and state legislatures. As no candidate in the presidential and several gubernatorial elections received more than 50% of the vote, a second-round runoff was held on 26 October. In the first round of voting Dilma Rousseff won 41.6% of the vote, ahead of Aécio Neves with 33.6% and Marina Silva with 21.3%. Rousseff and Neves contested the runoff on 26 October and Rousseff won re-election by a narrow margin, 51.6% to Neves' 48.4%. Incumbent President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers' Party, Brazil's first female president, was challenged by 11 other candidates. Minas Gerais Senator Aécio Neves from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party and Marina Silva from the Brazilian Socialist Party were her main rivals. Since none of the candidates obtained over 50% of the valid votes in the 5 October election, a second-round election was held on 26 October between Rousseff and Neves, who had finished first and second in the 5 October vote.
In Brazil's closest presidential election results since 1989, Rousseff narrowly defeated Neves in the second round, taking 51.6% of the vote to Neves' 48.4%. The original PSB candidate had been Eduardo Campos. However, he died in a plane crash in Santos on 13 August 2014, after which the party chose Silva, his running mate, to replace him as the presidential candidate. Criticised for low economic growth and intervening in the economy. Proposed less intervention in the economy. Shortly before the election a former executive of the state-run oil company Petrobras accused a minister, three state governors, six senators and dozens of congressmen from President Dilma Rousseff’s Workers’ Party and several coalition allies of having accepted kickbacks from contracts. First Round Second Round Rousseff vs. Neves Rousseff vs. Silva Silva vs. Neves Sources: Chamber Senate 198 of the elected candidates were new to the House of Representatives, the highest proportion of freshmen in 16 years; the number of political parties in the parliament increased from 22 parties after the 2010 election to 28 at the beginning of the new term
Brazil labor reform (2017)
The 2017 labor reform in Brazil is a significant change in the country's Consolidation of Labor Laws. According to the government, the goal of the reform is to combat unemployment and the economic crisis the country is going through; the bill was proposed and sent to the Chamber of Deputies by the president Michel Temer in December 23, 2016. Since during its processing in the National Congress, it was going through several debates and additions to the original bill, for example, the proposal to end the obligatory syndicate tax paid by workers hired under the CLT; the bill was approved by the Chamber in April 26, 2017, with 177 against. In the Federal Senate, it was approved on July 11, 2017, by 50 versus 26 votes, it was sanctioned by the president in July 13, 2017, with no vetoes. The law will start to be valid in November 11 of 120 days after the sanction. Labor reform is controversial in Brazilian society, its supporters argue that the reform increase the number of jobs. Its critics argue that the reform violates the Brazilian constitution and International Labour Organization conventions signed by Brazil.
Most of the changes involve intricate details. The most simple changes are: Outsourcing law in Brazil 2015–2017 Brazilian economic crisis 2017 Brazilian general strike
Workers' Party (Brazil)
The Workers' Party is a democratic socialist political party in Brazil. Launched in 1980, it is one of the largest movements of Latin America. PT governed at the federal level in a coalition government with several other parties from 1 January 2003 to 31 August 2016. After the 2002 parliamentary election, PT became the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies and the largest in the Federal Senate for the first time ever. With the highest approval rating in the history of the country, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is PT's most prominent member, his successor Dilma Rousseff a member of PT, took office on 1 January 2011. Both born from the opposition to the coup d'état of 1964 and the subsequent military dictatorship, PT and the Brazilian Social Democracy Party from 1994 to 2014 were the biggest adversaries in contemporary Brazilian politics, with their candidates finishing either first or second on the ballot on the last six presidential elections. Both parties prohibit any kind of coalition or official cooperation with each other.
Despite its large number of supporters, the party has been involved in a number of corruption scandals since Lula first came to power and spawned an large number of opponents as well. The party's symbols are the red flag with a white star in the center. Workers' Party's TSE Identification Number is 13; the Workers' Party was launched by a heterogeneous group made up of militants opposed to Brazil's military government, trade unionists, left-wing intellectuals and artists and Catholics linked to the liberation theology on 10 February 1980 at Colégio Sion in São Paulo, a private Catholic school for girls. The party emerged as a result of the approach between the labor movements in the ABC Region such as the Conferência das Classes Trabalhadoras developed into the Central Única dos Trabalhadores which carried major strikes from 1978 to 1980. Dilma Rousseff herself was tortured by the dictatorship. PT was launched under a democratic socialism trend. After the 1964 coup d'état, Brazil's main federation of labor unions, the General Command of Workers, which since its formation gathered leaders approved by the Ministry of Labour, a practice tied to the fact that since Getúlio Vargas's dictatorship, unions had become quasi-state organs, was dissolved while unions themselves suffered intervention of the military regime.
The resurgence of an organized labour movement, evidenced by strikes in the ABC Region on the late 1970s led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, enabled the reorganization of the labour movement without the direct interference of the state. The movement sought to act in union politics, but the survival of a conservative unionism under the domination of the state and the influence exercised over the trade union movement by leaders of traditional left-wing parties, such as the Brazilian Communist Party, forced the unionist movement of ABC, encouraged by anti-Stalinist leaders, to organize its own party in a strategy similar to that held by the Solidarność union movement in Poland. Therefore, PT emerged rejecting the traditional leaders of official unionism and seeking to put into practice a new form of democratic socialism, trying to reject political models it regarded as decaying, such as the Soviet and Chinese ones, it represented the confluence between unionism and anti-Stalinist intelligentsia.
PT was recognized as a party by the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court on 11 February 1982. The first membership card belonged to art critic and former Trotskyst activist Mário Pedrosa, followed by literary scholar Antonio Candido and historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. Holanda's daughter Ana de Holanda became Minister of Culture in the Rousseff cabinet. Since 1988, the Workers' Party has grown in popularity on the national stage by winning the elections in many of the largest Brazilian cities, such as São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre and Goiânia as well as in some important states, such as Rio Grande do Sul, Espírito Santo and the Federal District; this winning streak culminated with the victory of its presidential candidate Lula in 2002 who succeeded Fernando Henrique Cardoso of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party. For its defense of economic liberalism, PSDB is the party's main electoral rival as well as the Democrats, heir of the National Renewal Alliance Party, ruling party during the military dictatorship.
Along with the Socialist People's Party, a dissidence of PCB, they form the centre-right opposition to the Lula administration. 1989 presidential elections In the 1989 general elections, Lula went to the second round with Fernando Collor de Mello. Though all centrist and left-wing candidates of the first round united around Lula's candidacy, Collor's campaign was supported by the mass media and Lula lost in the second round by a close margin of 5.7%.1994 and 1998 general elections Leading up to the 1994 general elections, Lula was the leading presidential candidate in the majority of polls. As a result and right-wing parties united
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