Skip to main content

The Guardian view on Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment: a tragedy and a scandal

Supporters of President Dilma

Nothing is clear in Brazil’s murky political crisis, except that the country will suffer the consequences for a long time to come. 

Ever since Stefan Zweig, writing in 1941, dubbed it “the land of the future”, Brazil has been reproached for failing to live up to the promise that its size, its resources and its insulation from the wars and troubles afflicting other parts of the world seemed to hold out. There have been moments when that promise seemed on the verge of becoming a reality, but such hopes have again been repeatedly dashed. The most recent came with the accession to power of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2003. Lula and his Workers party, or PT, brought new ideas, new energy and a new style into a Brazilian politics disfigured by corruption, patronage, and persistent procrastination in the face of the pressing issues before the nation.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Top social tech firms urged to step up online abuse fightback

The top tech companies are talking to grassroots organisations across the globe to organise a fightback on their platforms against online abuse, hate speech, misogyny and stalking. The famous social networks Facebook, Twitter and Google are reaching out to women’s groups, NGOs and communities in Africa, America, Europe and the Middle East as the scale of abuse online continues to increase. So these attempts to foster a (counter-speech) movement to challenge the violent misogyny, racism, threats, intimidation and abuse that flood social media platforms have prompted some of the communities they are trying to empower to question whether they are ducking their own responsibilities. A fomous actor said, of the End Violence against Women coalition,  ( Any moves by social media companies to support, encourage and empower individuals and groups to resist and counter abuse is very welcome ). So the facebook’s US-based head of global safety, Antigone Davis, has recently overseen a series...

Instagram unveils new logo, but it's not quite picture perfect | TheNews Linzer

Photo sharing app unveils new sunset-coloured logo and a sleeker in-app look, but opinion is mixed Instagram, the photo sharing app owned by Facebook, responsible for such cultural highlights as hot-dog legs, The Fat Jewish memes and Rich Kids of, well, Instagram, has debuted a new logo. The previous one, a retro-looking camera, and one of the most recognisable tech logos out there, has been replaced by a background swirl of sunset colours (orange, yellow, pink, purple) and a white outline of a camera. As if the camera was murdered, and chalk was drawn around its body. Murdered at sundown. Here it is: The new logo was announced via a blog post, a longer post on Medium from head of design, Ian Spalter, and also a short introductory film. The kind that is usually intensely annoying, but actually this one is quite cute (warning though: the end has a lot of flashing and intense colours). Continue reading... Published By - Theguardian.com- Tech News, Politics news, UK and world politic...

Bernie Sanders wins Oregon primary while Clinton claims narrow win in Kentucky | TheNews Linzer

Sanders overcame state’s closed primary, which allows only registered Democrats – not independents – to vote, while Clinton declared victory in Kentucky Bernie Sanders’ supporters handed him a win in the Oregon primary on Tuesday, adding to his run of late victories over Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. With 60% of the vote reporting, the Vermont senator was ahead of Clinton 53%-47%. In Kentucky, which also voted on Tuesday, Clinton declared victory hours after polls closed, but officially the race was too close to call . With 99.8% reporting, Clinton had 46.8% to 46.3% for Sanders. From the start, it seemed Oregon was destined to be Bernie Sanders country. When the Vermont senator first visited Portland, while still considered a fringe candidate, huge crowds of supporters forced his campaign to book a basketball stadium to accommodate the larger-than-anticipated crowd. During a later visit, a tiny bird landed on his podium in the midst of his speech, delighting the intern...