The return of censorship to Brazil

In recent months, after the election of a far-right candidate for president, Brazil is witnessing the return of censorship at various levels. From mayors to the president himself, Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil has become the scene of arbitrariness against cultural productions that do not fit the ultra-conservative perspective of certain political actors in the country.

According to the website El País Brasil, the president himself justifies his mission of “preserving Christian values, treating our youth with respect, recognizing the family as a unit that must be healthy for the good of all”. In the name of this, several far-right civil servants and politicians judge themselves on the right to censor books, comics, plays, art exhibitions, and film productions.

In January 2019, upon assuming the presidency of Brazil, Bolsonaro extinguished the Ministry of Culture. Since then, the ministry has become secretariat status within the new Ministry of Citizenship, under the command of Minister Osmar Terra, who, among other things, has advocated the closure of the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) if the agency approves rules on cannabis plantation in Brazil for the production of medicines and prohibited the publication of the 3rd National Survey on Drug Use by the Brazilian Population by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), a health research institution with more than 100 years of history.

President Jair Bolsonaro has already censored an advertisement by state bank Banco do Brasil that displayed racial and sexual diversity. The video censored by the Brazilian president featured black actors and actresses and different contemporary styles of life just to talk to the young audience, targeted by the bank's campaign.

Now another state-owned bank, Caixa Economica Federal, according to Folha de S. Paulo, has created a system of censorship prior to projects of its cultural centers. This week, according to the UOL website, Caixa Cultural Recife canceled the presentations of the children's show Abrazo, which was scheduled for this and next weekend. The play, organized by the Shakespeare Christmas group Clowns of Natal (RN), shows a country that prohibits displays of affection and subtly exposes themes such as dictatorship, censorship, and repression.

In the same vein, other lesser politicians, such as Rio de Janeiro Mayor Marcelo Crivella, also tried to censor other artistic manifestations. At the last Rio Book Biennial, the mayor ordered to censor and collect copies of the comic book "Avengers - The Children's Crusade", because the comic had a picture of two young men kissing. The measure was eventually prohibited by the court. Crivella, who is also a bishop of a  Christian right church, has very low approval as mayor and was seeking to increase his approval among the city's most conservative population with this comic book censorship.

At the same time, President Jair Bolsonaro, in an offensive against the Brazilian National Film Agency (Ancine), cut 43% of the audiovisual fund. Then, the Ministry of Citizenship issued an ordinance that prevented the completion of an announcement by the National Cinema Agency (Ancine) for LGBT-themed audiovisual productions. The Brazilian Justice, through the Federal Prosecutor's Office (MPF), would eventually suspend the ordinance that was considered harmful to public coffers.

Paradoxically, the Bolsonaro government is trying to put into practice in Brazil an unacceptable ideological rigging of the state, a fact that he widely criticized as a presidential candidate. Now, in addition to the deep economic crisis and the enormous environmental problems affecting the nation, Brazil has also become the target of the backward and often deranged rightism advocated by the president and other members of his government as the minister of family, women and human rights, Damares Alves, and the Brazilian Chancellor, Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo.

The Household Budget Survey (POF) 2017-2018, released today by IBGE, points out that Brazilians are investing less and paying more debt

The Household Budget Survey (POF) 2017-2018, released today by IBGE, points out that Brazilians are investing less and paying more debt. According to the research, households have less budget space to buy assets such as real estate, land, and capitalization bonds, while they need to devote more of their income to reducing their debt and paying taxes.

The survey generally shows a significant shift in household spending priorities since the 1970s. At that time, Brazilians households stamped 16.5% of their spending on "asset growth." This group, it should be noted, does not include vehicle purchase expenses, which are accounted for under the heading “consumption expenses”.

According to the survey, average Brazilian household expenses amount to R$ 4,649.03 per month, of which only 4.1% was devoted to “asset increases” such as the acquisition of real estate, land, and securities. This is a smaller proportion than in previous versions of the survey, such as 2002-2003 (4.8%) and 2008-2009 (5.8%). This means, in practice, that Brazilians are saving less.

After heavy losses yesterday, Ibovespa operates slightly higher today; dollar remains above R$ 4.00 in Brazil

After falling almost 3% yesterday (02.10.2019), Ibovespa opened today's session with slightly positive performance, which helps to recover some of the recent losses.

Today (02.10.2019), the dollar continues to fall abroad, which, in turn, produces adjustments in the foreign exchange market in Brazil. This morning, in Brazil, the commercial dollar dropped by 0.25% to R $ 4.1235 in the purchase and to R $ 4.1442 in the sale. The futures dollar for November, in turn, fell 0.23% to R $ 4,127 this morning.

Yesterday, the dollar fell 0.67% to R$ 4,1344 on sale, the highest daily low for a close since September 11 (-0.76%) and the lowest since September 18 (R$ 4.1028).

Petrobras (PETR3; PETR4) announces employee benefit cut

According to Suno Research, Petrobras (PETR3; PETR4) will begin to withdraw benefits and migrate to current labor legislation. This means that the Brazilian state-owned company, faced with the current deadlock in negotiations with the Single Federation of Oil Tankers (FUP), regarding the collective bargaining agreement, decided to go for individual agreements, with some specific benefits. This, of course, greatly weakens workers and will favor the company, which may adopt more aggressive stances in individual negotiations.

Currently, Petrobras and FUP are negotiating in the Superior Labor Court (TST) to try to reach a new collective agreement. According to the FUP, among the points under discussion are the compensation for overtime and co-participation in the health plans of employees.

This stalemate could lead the category to a strike, which could gain greater connotations and hinder the sale of pre-salt oil fields at the so-called mega auction scheduled for November this year. Petrobras, in turn, said in a statement that "it was tireless in seeking a deal", even presenting two new versions of its original proposal.

Gold mining dam breaks in Mato Grosso and injures two people; meanwhile, the Brazilian president continues to defend the implementation of large-scale mining in the Amazon

Yesterday, the TB01 dam in the municipality of Nossa Senhora do Livramento, in Mato Grosso, broke up leaving two people injured. The tailings from gold mining flowed through an area of vegetation on the site, knocking down a high voltage pole that serves the region. The Civil Defense rules out the need to vacate the city, which is 30 kilometers away.

Mining in Brazil has already produced numerous environmental disasters. The crimes committed by the mining companies in the cities of Mariana, Bento Rodrigues and Brumadinho, in Minas Gerais, produced huge damage to the affected ecosystems and the region's economy. Such losses are so great that they are incalculable and in some cases irreversible.

As this blog post already pointed out, the landslide that occurred in Brumadinho dam of Vale on January 25 is an example. 250 people died. The tragedy was a direct result of the lack of public oversight and the policy of easing environmental licensing laws, which is widely advocated by the current government of Jair Bolsonaro and his Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, which want to apply this same policy to the Amazon region.

Yesterday, President Jair Bolsonaro, speaking to a group of prospectors, stated that "the interest in the Amazon isn't in the Indian or the fucking tree, it's in the ore." The statement took place in front of Planalto Palace after Bolsonaro received representatives of the group.

Bolsonaro wants to implement large-scale mining in the Amazon.

Champion municipalities of deforestation and burning in the Amazon are dominated by cattle and soy production; JBS, Bunge and Santander appointed as complicit in Amazon deforestation, study finds

According to the Jornal GGN website, seven of the ten most burned municipalities in Brazil in 2019 are also on the list of the most deforested. According to Paulo Moutinho, co-founder of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Ipam), "deforestation advances with the fire going forward". Therefore, the fire would be the second step towards cattle and soy production. First, the areas are deforested. Then they are burned. The following are the productions of cattle and soy.

An investigation led by the NGO Amazon Watch, in partnership with Brazilian and European organizations, points out that large companies such as JBS, Bunge, and Santander are appointed as accomplices of Amazon deforestation.

According to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, "while illegal deforestation, burning, and occupation of cattle land are often run by independent groups of large exporters, the profit that keeps the thriving cycle in the Amazon is backed by global consumer chains commodities, especially wood, meat, and soy."

According to Folha, "the study coordinated by Amazon Watch has investigated business relationships of 56 Ibama-certified companies over the past two years with brands consumed in Europe and the United States."

According to the newspaper, "among the dozens of multinationals found as buyers of companies that have committed recent infractions are the largest Brazilian refrigerators, such as the JBS group, and soy production giants, such as Bunge and Cargill."

Ibama inspectors responsible for protecting the Amazon suffer death threats and are victims of constant attacks; meanwhile, a fire in the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, continues to destroy this conservation unit

A report from the Fantástico program, from Rede Globo television network, the largest in Brazil, showed that agents from Ibama and ICMBio who have already escaped numerous attacks. They are victims of loggers who illegally clear the forest to sell timber illegally.

In recent days, a police operation in the Amazon region has arrested two leaders of a group accused of invading public lands and threatening those who are there to defend the forest.

Today, a fire continues to spread through the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, destroying part of the conservation unit located in the northeast of Goiás. 3,000 hectares within the park and another 3,500 hectares around the conservation unit. The State Environmental Department has launched an inquiry to investigate the causes of the fire and appoint any responsible.

The Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, localized in the central Brazilian state of Goiás, is known for its dramatic canyons and quartz crystal rock formations, rock pools, waterfalls, some over 100 meters high, and a very important and fragile biodiverse of the Cerrado, another Brazilian region that is being destroyed by arson. The park is home to many orchid species and wildlife including armadillos, jaguars, and toucans.

To date, the fire has reached approximately 3,000 hectares within the park and more than 3,500 hectares in the surrounding area.

Brazilian government does not destroy criminal equipment in Amazon, according to website Congresso em Foco

An official document accessed by the Congresso em Foco website, if according to an IBAMA server, the reinforcements that the Federal Government sent to contain the Amazon fires refused to cooperate in at least three operations, as they could result in the destruction of illegal prospectors or loggers' machinery. 

Following the worldwide repercussion of the Amazon fires and destruction, Jair Bolsonaro's government decided to send more than 7,000 troops to the region. However, according to the document to which the site had access, this effective can not always be used to combat one of the main causes of fires: mining and illegal logging.

The current government's relationship with woodworkers and prospectors is dubious. Earlier this month, to get an idea, according to the website Revista Fórum, the Environment Minister Ricardo Salles put in command of IBAMA (Brazilian environmental police) in Ceará, Colonel Ricardo Célio Chagas Bezerra, a ruralist known for extracting wood from the Amazon. Chagas owns a logging farm in Altamira (PA), a region where "Fire Day" was triggered by ruralists who set fire to the forest in 2019.

Last Friday, an environmental enforcement operation seized six trucks loaded with illegal timber in Tucuruí, Pará. According to the state government in northern Brazil, the cargo may have been removed from the Tucuruí Lake Mosaic, a protected area managed by Ideflor-Bio.

Among the deforested species are castanheiras, maçarandubas, amapás, guajarás e angelins vermelhos.

In Mato Grosso do Sul, the Environmental Military Police (PMA) issued R$ 12,700 in fines for environmental crimes in just 24 hours.

Petrobras (PETR3; PETR4) will no longer operate in gas distribution and transportation; Petrobras raises gasoline price by 2.5%

Petrobras' Board of Directors approved the update of the company's new strategic plan, valid for the period 2020 to 2024. Under the plan, Petrobras will no longer fully operate in gas distribution and transportation and will also exit the fertilizer, distribution and distribution business. LPG and biodiesel.

The state-owned company, with the implementation of the new strategy, will act competitively in the commercialization of its own gas and will fully exit gas distribution and transportation.

Petrobras President Roberto Castello Branco said the company will be engaged in deepwater oil exploration and production and will be less indebted.

Today (27.09.2019), Petrobras has again raised the price of gasoline in refineries. The new values practiced indicating a 2.5% readjustment compared to the value of the previous day.

Informality breaks the historical record in the Brazilian labor market

According to the National Continuous Household Sample Survey (PNAD Contínua), released today by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 41.4% of the employed population is in informality. Of the 684,000 new employed persons, 87.1% entered the job market informally.

Therefore, almost 40 million workers are in informality. According to IBGE data, in the quarter ended in August, Brazil had 38.8 million informal workers. It is the highest level of informality in the Brazilian labor market ever recorded by PNAD Contínua.

A survey by the Getulio Vargas Foundation Social Policy Center and released by the BBC Brazil shows that between 2014 and 2017, Brazil gained a contingent of 6.27 million "new poor". These are people who lost their jobs and started to live in poverty, with income from work of less than R$ 233 per month (around 56 dollars a month). As wages are the main source of income for poor and vulnerable families, poverty in Brazil in the sharpest period of the recession has increased by 33%, and the country's total poverty has risen to 23.3 million, according to the survey.

All this added to the reforms made by the Temer and Bolsonaro governments that continually removed labor rights in what was called labor market flexibility helped to increase informality. Now, in Brazil, many people work but have no vacation, 13 salário, Fundo de Garantia (FGTS). This scenario, contrary to what was promised (to improve the population's life), deepened inequality in the country.

During Michel Temer's administration, then Economy Minister Henrique Meirelles even said that the new labor law would produce over 6 million jobs. Two years after the reform comes into force, instead of the 6 million jobs promised, what is seen is a worsening of workers' quality of life and an increase in informality in the labor market.

In turn, Paulo Guedes, Minister of Economy of the Jair Bolsonaro government, also advocates the creation of a new work card in which workers will not be entitled to benefits earned by various categories under union agreements.

In less than a month, Brazilian Army actions arrest 63 people for Amazon fires; the region recorded over 30,000 fires outbreaks in August 2019

Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva announced that 63 people had been arrested and $ 8.7 million were issued in fines during just one month of a military operation to fight fires in the Amazon. In August alone, the Amazon region recorded twice as many outbreaks in the same period of 2018.

According to ICMbio's environmental emergency coordinator, Christian Berlinck, the agency found that most of the Amazonian fire outbreaks originate from human action.

Brazil recorded more than 30,000 fire outbreaks in August 2019 in the Amazon region. Almost triple the total recorded in the previous year.

During a press conference, Minister Azevedo said the following paradoxical phrase: "the Amazon is burning, but not as serious as it was said."

One criticism of the current government was to act only after the fires reached very high levels. Activist Paloma Costa, a student at the University of Brasilia, asked during a UN debate, alongside Greta Thunberg at the Climate Summit: "Do we need to see the Amazon on fire to act?"

Costa said that since 2018, "half a billion trees have been destroyed in the Amazon, and people ask me if I'm afraid to defend the forest. Environmental advocates are at risk, but I'm not afraid. I'm afraid to die. "

In recent years, since 2017, Brazil has led the Global Witness ranking of killings of environmental activists. According to the report, in 2018 alone, Brazil had at least 20 murders of environmental and human rights activists.

Meanwhile, in his UN General Assembly address, President Jair Bolsonaro said the Amazon "remains virtually untouched." However, according to the MapBiomas platform, a project that monitors satellite land cover and land use in Brazilian biomes, the Brazilian Amazon has 411 million hectares of land area. Of this total, 14.4% or 59.1 million hectares is currently not covered by its original vegetation cover.