Brazil’s Bolsonaro picks family friend to head federal police

[mountaineer]

Brazil’s Bolsonaro picks family friend to head federal police
 29/04/2020 - 07:26
FRANCE 24

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday named a family friend to head the federal police, days after his justice minister quit and accused the president of meddling in law enforcement for political motives.

The controversy over the appointment by Bolsonaro and allegations by outgoing minister Sergio Moro of improper interference in the police force triggered talk of impeachment and a criminal investigation approved by the Supreme Court, distracting from the coronavirus epidemic that has killed 5,017 people in Brazil.

The government's official gazette confirmed the appointment of new federal police chief Alexandre Ramagem, 48, who took charge of the president's security after he was stabbed on the campaign trail in 2018. The selection comes amid investigations of alleged wrongdoing by Bolsonaro's sons.

Ramagem, who joined the federal police in 2005, has the fewest years of service of any officer tapped to lead the force. ...

Brazil's Supreme Court on Monday gave the green light for the top public prosecutor to investigate the allegations against Bolsonaro of interfering in law enforcement. Justice Celso de Mello gave the federal police 60 days to carry out the investigation requested by Brazil's chief public prosecutor Augusto Aras.

Based on the results of the police investigation, the public prosecutor will decide whether to press charges against the president. An indictment would have to be approved by the lower house. ...

Full story

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Bolsonaro’s latest crisis threatens Brazil’s virus response
By DAVID BILLER and MARCELO DE SOUSA
 April 28, 2020

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — As Brazil careens toward a full-blown public health emergency and economic meltdown, President Jair Bolsonaro has managed to add a third ingredient to the toxic mix: political crisis. Even if it doesn’t speed his downfall, it will render Brazilians more vulnerable to the pandemic.

Bolsonaro’s decision last week to replace the federal police chief – and cross his popular justice minister, Sérgio Moro, who quit and alleged impropriety – has sparked an investigation into the president’s actions that will be conducted by the federal police itself. Already the scandal threatens to supplant coronavirus as the day’s most urgent matter. ...

The International Monetary Fund this month forecast Brazil’s GDP will plunge 5.3% in 2020. That would be the deepest single-year tumble since at least 1901, when national accounts data from the government’s economics institute began. Brazil contracted 2% in 1918, the year of the Spanish flu pandemic, according to the institute. ... More from Associated Press

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As virus cases surge, Brazil starts to worry its neighbors
By ALMUDENA CALATRAVA and MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN


BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Brazil’s virtually uncontrolled surge of COVID-19 cases is spawning fear that construction workers, truck drivers and tourists from Latin America’s biggest nation will spread the disease to neighboring countries that are doing a better job of controlling the coronavirus.

Brazil, a continent-sized country that shares borders with nearly every other nation in South America, has reported more than 70,000 cases and more than 5,000 deaths, according to government figures and a tally by Johns Hopkins University — far more than any of its neighbors. The true number of deaths and infections is believed to be much higher because of limited testing.

The country’s borders remain open, there are virtually no quarantines or curfews and President Jair Bolsonaro continues to scoff at the seriousness of the disease.   ...More from Associated Press

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Brazilians start defying isolation, egged on by Bolsonaro
By DAVID BILLER and MAURICIO SAVARESE
April 30, 2020

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Divina Baldomero awoke, looked out the window at Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach under a cloudless sky, and decided to take her first stroll in 40 days.

The 75-year-old restaurant owner, like most Brazilians, had been adhering to her governor’s call to stay home to contain the spread of the coronavirus. But on this day she decided to ignore that, urged on by the view of President Jair Bolsonaro that the shutdown is wrongheaded, will wreck the economy and that anyway, the virus isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

“At first I thought (the shutdown) was viable. Later, I came to think we will have more economic difficulties, with the poverty there is. There should be a different way so we can be free of this,” said Baldomero, speaking Wednesday in front of the shuttered Copacabana Palace hotel. Her legs, virtually unused for more than a month, began trembling after seven minutes of standing.  ...

More at Associated Press

"Egged on"? That's some real unbiased reporting there, AP.