The water crisis in Rio de Janeiro remains unsolved

Cedae (State Water and Sewage Company) leaves 67 neighborhoods in the city of Rio Janeiro and 6 other cities in the state without water.

The Guandu Treatment Station, one of the largest in the country, stopped its activities for 14 hours due to the presence of detergent in the spring.

In total, there is no water supply in 67 neighborhoods in the capital and in six municipalities in the Baixada Fluminense, where 7 million people live.
For the sanitation specialist Renato Falcão Dantas, "the trend is getting worse", in a report published by O Globo.

In several parts of the city of Rio de Janeiro and Baixada Fluminense there is a lack of mineral water in supermarkets. Residents have been consuming mineral water for three weeks so as not to consume the muddy and fetid water that is coming out of the taps.

According to technicians, the water that is coming out of the taps is contaminated by geosmin, an organic compound formed by carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and produced naturally by algae.

Brazilian industrial production closes 2019 with a drop of 1.1%; informality in the labor market in Brazil is the highest in the last 4 years

Segundo a Pesquisa Industrial Mensal (PIM-PF), divulgada pelo IBGE, "a produção nacional da indústria brasileira recuou 1,1% no ano de 2019, após dois anos seguidos de crescimento em 2017 (2,5%) e 2018 (1%)".

De acordo com o gerente da pesquisa, André Macedo, "das 24 atividades pesquisadas, 16 tiveram queda no ano. A produção industrial pode estar sendo impactada pelas incertezas no ambiente externo e também pela situação do mercado de trabalho no país que, embora tenha tido melhora, ainda afeta a demanda doméstica”.

According to the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Continuous PNAD), also published by IBGE, informality in the Brazilian labor market, that is, the sum of workers without a license, domestic workers without a license, an employer without a CNPJ, an own account without CNPJ and auxiliary family worker, reached 41.1% of the employed population in 2019. This total is equivalent to 38.4 million people, the largest contingent since 2016. 

According to IBGE, informal work in Brazil reaches the largest contingent since 2016, with 41.4% of the employed population, which corresponds to 38.4 million people

According to the IBGE, Brazil has 11.6 million workers without a formal contract in the private sector, a number that does not include domestic employees. This total represents an expansion of 4% in relation to 2018. This is the highest level of the historical series started in 2012. The number of self-employed workers reached the highest level in the series, rising to 24.2 million, with the most (19.3 million), without CNPJ. The number also represents an increase of 3.9 million people since 2012. In comparison with 2018, the expansion was 4.1% (958 thousand).

Therefore, informality reached 41.1% of the employed population, equivalent to 38.4 million people, the largest contingent since 2016, despite the stability in relation to 2018.

Economically, it is brutal for a country when informality reaches 41% of the labor market. If we take into account the growth of temporary and part-time contracts, Brazil is undergoing a dramatic change for the worse in employment.

It is not possible to consider the fall in the unemployment rate to be positive when it is a direct result of the growth of informality. The reason is simple: selling things on the street and working intermittently 4 hours a day is underemployment.

Jair Bolsonaro's government promises a deficit in 2019 of between R$ 70 billion and R$ 80 billion, but the government ended last year with a primary deficit of R$ 95.1 billion

According to the newspaper Correio Braziliense, data released by the National Treasury show that the deficit recorded last year is R $ 43.9 billion less than the target forecast for 2019, which was a negative result of R $ 139 billion. The result is also 23.7% better than in 2018 when the gap reached R $ 120 billion. However, the gap was much larger than the government had promised.

Jair Bolsonaro's government had promised a deficit in 2019 between R$ 70 billion and R$ 80 billion, but the government ended last year with a primary deficit of R$ 95.1 billion, that is, more than 15 billion above the government's forecast.

Despite the result being the best since 2014 after Economy Minister Paulo announced that the deficit in 2019 was expected to be R$ 80 billion. Then, Mansueto Almeida, secretary of the Treasury, even said that the 2019 deficit would be R$ 70 billion. For this reason, the final result is frustrating, if we consider the communications of the registry and the secretary. Therefore, this government's inability to communicate with the media can worsen even when the results are not so bad.

Extreme weather: rains close to three times the average in the last five days in Minas Gerais, Brazil, causing 53 dead, one person missing, 65 injured and leaving more than 4 thousand homeless and more than 28 thousand displaced from their homes

The number of deaths due to the rains in Minas Gerais in the last few days has reached 53. Since October 2019, 64 people have died in Minas Gerais in rains that behave as extreme weather events. Until then, the highest number of deaths had been 18, in the 2016/2017 and 2018/2019 rainy seasons.

According to the G1 website, the latest balance released by the State Civil Defense of Minas Gerais, published on Tuesday (28), 28,893 people are displaced and another 4,397 have lost their homes due to intense rains. More than 100 cities have already ruled out an emergency situation.

Videos of scary rain scenes in Belo Horizonte have taken over social media in Brazil in the last hours.

List of videos:

video 1;

video 2;

video 3;

video 4.

Ministry of Health of Brazil raised the risk rating to "imminent danger" after confirming 3 patients suspected of having the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Minas Gerais, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul

Ministry of Health of Brazil raised the risk rating to "imminent danger" after confirming 3 patients suspected of having the coronavirus in Minas Gerais, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul. 

Today, according to the Poder360 website, Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency of Brazil) has created 1 public health emergency group to conduct actions related to the new coronavirus. The team was created through an ordinance published in the Diário Oficial da União (an official government publication) today.

Today, the Paraná Department of Health has ruled out a suspected coronavirus case in Curitiba. Until yesterday, two patients were admitted to hospitals in the capital of Paraná with the suspicion of having contracted the disease. According to the folder, the patient had influenza of the Influenza B subtype, which was detected in tests.

The second case of coronavirus is still under investigation in Curitiba. It is a 23-year-old woman who is at the Hospital das Clínicas. She traveled to China in the past few days.

According to the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the three patients under observation who are in Curitiba (Paraná), Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais) and Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul) fit the current definition of suspected cases for nCoV-2019 (the coronavirus) established by WHO (World Health Organization).

Rains kill 50 people in Minas Gerais and leave more than 28 thousand displaced and 4 thousand homeless

According to the newspaper O Tempo, fifty people died in Minas Gerais due to the heavy rains that hit the state last week. Two other people are still missing in the cities of Conselheiro Lafaiete, in the central region of the state, and Luisburgo, in the region of Zona da Mata. According to authorities, the death toll could rise in the coming hours. In all, 28,043 people are displaced in Minas Gerais. Of these, about four thousand are homeless in the region due to heavy rains.

For the general coordinator of Research and Development of the National Center for Monitoring and Natural Disaster Alerts (Cemaden), the meteorologist and climatologist José Mareng, Brazil will increasingly be a "climate of extremes".

For many climate experts, the rise in temperatures on the planet produces extreme phenomena such as the last rains in Minas, which are the most intense in the last 100 years, becoming more and more frequent.

Days before the rains that hit Minas Gerais, the region was hit by a heatwave. In Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state, which was hard hit by the rains, the highest temperature this year was recorded at 34.3ºC.

Brazil confirms of suspected coronavirus case in Minas Gerais

According to UOL, the Brazilian Ministry of Health reported today that it has analyzed more than 7,000 cases of rumors of Brazilians infected with the coronavirus. Of this total, 127 cases needed verification and were sent to Fiocruz. The institution will perform tests to confirm or rule out a coronavirus case in Minas Gerais. Currently, only one case is under suspicion: she is a Brazilian woman who visited China and returned to Minas Gerais. She is isolated and being accompanied by doctors.

The coronavirus (2019-nCoV) started circulating at the end of last year in China and is spreading around the world.

After public pressure government gives up to tax solar energy in Brazil

Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency), the body that regulates the electric power sector in Brazil, wanted to change the current rule, which allows solar energy produced by those who have solar panels at home or in the company to be returned to the grid. Those who do this get discounts on their electric bills.

Therefore, according to the current rules for solar energy generation for own consumption in Brazil, the operation is simple: who produces more energy than it spends throws this surplus in the distribution network and gets the credits. Those who produce less than spend pay the difference to the distributor.

Aneel's proposal, defended by Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, has been the target of numerous criticisms. The public pressure was so great that President Jair Bolsonaro, Mayor Rodrigo Maia and Senate President Davi Alcolumbre publicly made a commitment not to change the rules on solar energy production in Brazil.

Aneel argues that those who receive this benefit are receiving subsidies, but, according to journalist Elio Gaspari, there would be subsidy "if the citizen consumed R$100 of kilowatts and only paid R$ 90. In this case, who has solar energy panels paid to distributors to the last penny for the energy it consumes".

The change in rules advocated by Aneel could increase the taxation of those who have solar panels by up to 60%, which for most experts could represent a huge setback for the area.

Brazilian industrial production falls 1.2% in November 2019, according to IBGE

Industrial production in Brazil fell 1.2% in November 2019 compared to October of the same year. This downfall interrupted the upward sequence of the previous three months.

According to IBGE, this is the worst November since 2015, when the industry fell 1.9%, according to the Monthly Industrial Survey, released today (01/09).

There was a reduction in the production of 16 of the 26 surveyed activities. The 1.2% drop eliminates part of the accumulated 2.2% expansion from August to October 2019. With these results, the Brazilian industrial sector is 17.1% below the record level reached in May 2011.

This indicates that many of Brazil's macroeconomic conditions have not changed sufficiently for the current optimism of the government's economic area (Paulo Guedes has even said that the private sector in Brazil could grow by 3% by 2020) and for many economic analysts in the Brazilian media.

In fact, industrial growth in Brazil will be very difficult without strong growth in the rest of the world. Brazil also needs to reverse the country's huge productivity gap.

Brazilian agribusiness fears Iranian retaliation and calls for Brazil's neutrality in US versus Iran conflict

According to the Congress em Foco website, Brazilian agribusiness, the sector that most benefits from Brazil's trade transactions with Iran, which is the second-largest importer of corn, the fifth-largest buyer of soybeans and the sixth-largest beef producer in Brazil. 2019.

This concern is so great that the president of the Parliamentary Front of Agriculture, Deputy Alceu Moreira (MDB-RS), defended that Brazil remains neutral to avoid diplomatic problems that could harm business between the two countries.

Brazilian agribusiness has much to lose if the Bolsonaro government maintains automatic alignment with the Trump government.

The note from Itamaraty (Brazil's Foreign Ministry), which said it supported the "fight against the scourge of terrorism" and placed itself with the US in the conflict, drives away a major buyer of Brazilian raw materials.