Brazil Archive

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss Turkey’s interests and agenda in the Syrian civil war. For the Report, Ciara Long talks with Peter Dörrie about the impact of austerity on higher education and social mobility in Brazil. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: Russia and Turkey Move Closer, but Can Erdogan Survive Putin’s Embrace? In Colombia, the Long Journey to Implementing Peace With the FARC Begins Does Any Party in South Sudan Have the Will to Prevent Genocide? Brazil’s Cuts to Higher Education Dash Hopes for […]

The paint around the front doors of the law building at the Federal University of Rio de Janiero (UFRJ) is flaking, but the inside remains pristine. Yellow walls stretch upward to meet high ceilings, while sizeable busts and oil portraits of the faculty’s founders stare watchfully on. But recently, they have been watching something unusual. Every evening since early November, 25 students have been sleeping in tents inside the faculty building in protest of a constitutional amendment, PEC 55, which was being reviewed by the government. On Dec. 13, it was approved, sparking protests across the country. Brazilians, and especially […]

Brazil, the embattled South American nation that has seen its fortunes rise and fall dramatically in the past few years, is once again looking like a country that foreshadows major global trends. This time, it is flashing warning signs about the coming battles in the worldwide campaign against corruption. For the past few years, Brazil has been in the news for its successes in rooting out embezzlement and bribery schemes involving the country’s industrial giants and its political class. But last week, Brazil’s corruption-plagued Chamber of Deputies took a controversial late-night vote. Rewriting an anti-corruption bill into one that would […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the legal status and socio-economic conditions of indigenous peoples in a range of countries. Last week dozens of indigenous people blocked the entrance to the presidential palace in Brasilia to demand that Brazilian President Michel Temer’s administration respect their rights. In an email interview Ana Carolina Alfinito Vieira, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, and Luiz Henrique Eloy, a lawyer with the Terena Indigenous Council, discuss indigenous rights in Brazil. WPR: What is the legal status of Brazil’s indigenous peoples, and […]