International

Tough choices as Brazil’s Lula gets down to business

Photo: Carl de Souza / AFP

| By AFP | Marcelo Silva De Sousa

Fresh off a celebratory beach holiday, Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva got down to uglier business Monday: figuring out how to govern with a hostile Congress, nasty budget crunch and impossible-looking to-do list.

The political horse-trading of the transition period now starts in earnest for the veteran leftist, who will be sworn in for a third term on January 1, facing a far tougher outlook than the commodities-fueled boom he presided over in the 2000s.

Lula, 77, celebrated his narrow win over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the October 30 runoff election by escaping last week to the sun-drenched coast of Bahia in northeastern Brazil.

He joked he needed a belated honeymoon with his first-lady-to-be, Rosangela “Janja” da Silva, whom the twice-widowed ex-metalworker married in May.

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His other honeymoon — the political one — could be short, analysts say.

Lula is meeting Monday with advisers in Sao Paulo. On Tuesday, he will travel to the capital, Brasilia, to finish assembling his 50-member transition team and start negotiating with members of Congress, two allies told AFP.

He faces a battle to get bills passed in a legislature where conservatives scored big gains in October’s elections.

Lula’s coalition has around 123 votes in the 513-seat Chamber of Deputies, and 27 in the 81-seat Senate, meaning he will have to strike alliances to get anything done — and even just survive, given the threat of impeachment in Brazil, where two presidents have been impeached in the past 30 years.

Into the shark tank

Lula is expected to meet in Brasilia with lower-house speaker Arthur Lira, a key Bolsonaro ally from the loose coalition of parties known as the “Centrao,” a group known for striking alliances with whoever is in power — in exchange for feeding on the federal pork barrel.

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Lula will be under pressure from the Centrao not to oppose the so-called “secret budget”: 19.4 billion reais ($3.8 billion) in basically unmonitored federal funding that Bolsonaro agreed to allocate to select lawmakers to boost support for his reelection bid.

Meanwhile, money will be tight for Lula’s campaign promises, including increasing the minimum wage and maintaining a beefed-up 600-reais-per-month welfare program, “Auxilio Brasil.”

Bolsonaro, who introduced the program, did not allocate sufficient funding to continue it in the 2023 budget.

“We can’t start 2023 without the ‘Auxilio’ and a real increase in the minimum wage,” the leader of Lula’s Workers’ Party, Gleisi Hoffmann, said Friday.

“That’s our contract with the Brazilian people.”

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Facing the impossible math of funding such pledges without breaking the government spending cap, Lula’s allies are exploring their options, including passing a constitutional amendment allowing exceptional spending next year.

But they are racing the clock: it would have to be approved by December 15.

Markets watching

Lula, who ran on vague promises of restoring Latin America’s biggest economy to the golden times of his first two terms (2003-2010), faces a bleaker picture this time around.

“The challenge is… how to balance fiscal responsibility with a highly anticipated social agenda,” in the face of high inflation and a possible global recession, said political scientist Leandro Consentino of Insper university.

Markets are watching closely — especially his pick for finance minister.

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Lula is expected to split Bolsonaro’s economy “super-ministry” into three portfolios: finance, planning, and trade and industry.

Analysts predict a political choice for finance minister, a technocrat for planning and a business executive for trade.

Names floated for the finance job include Lula’s former education minister Fernando Haddad and his campaign coordinator, Aloizio Mercadante.

COP27 stage

Other closely watched portfolios are the environment and a promised new ministry of Indigenous affairs — both sore spots under Bolsonaro, who presided over a surge of destruction in the Amazon rainforest.

The former job could go to Lula’s one-time environment minister Marina Silva, credited with curbing deforestation in the 2000s.

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In a key gesture, the president-elect will make his return to the international stage at the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt, where he will arrive on November 14, advisers said.

Silva, who will travel with him, told newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo: “The climate issue is now a strategic priority at the highest level.”

International

Police investigate deaths of Rob Reiner and wife as apparent homicide

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is investigating the deaths of Hollywood actor and filmmaker Rob Reinerand his wife as an “apparent homicide,” amid a wave of tributes to the director of classics such as When Harry Met Sally.

According to U.S. media reports on Sunday, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner were found dead at their Los Angeles mansion with what appeared to be stab wounds.

Several political figures shared messages of condolence following the reported deaths of the director of A Few Good Menand his wife.

While the LAPD did not officially confirm the identities of the victims, it stated that homicide detectives were dispatched to the Reiner residence.

“At this time, no additional details are available and the investigation into an apparent homicide is ongoing,” the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement posted on social media.

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LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton told reporters that no arrests have been made and that no individuals are currently being questioned as suspects.

“I’m not going to confirm whether anyone is being questioned at this moment or not. We are going to try to speak with as many family members as we can,” Hamilton said.

CNN reported that a family spokesperson confirmed the deaths of Reiner and his wife.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, former U.S. President Barack Obama, and former Vice President Kamala Harrisissued statements expressing their condolences.

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International

U.S. and Mexico Reach Deal to Address Water Deficit Under 1944 Treaty

The United States and Mexico have reached an agreement to comply with current water obligations affecting U.S. farmers and ranchers and for Mexico to cover its water deficit to Texas under the 1944 Water Treaty, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a statement.

The department уточified that the agreement applies to both the current cycle and the water deficit from the previous cycle.

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump accused Mexico of failing to comply with the water-sharing treaty between the two countries, which requires the United States to deliver 1.85 billion cubic meters of water from the Colorado River, while Mexico must supply 432 million cubic meters from the Rio Grande.

Mexico is behind on its commitments. According to Washington, the country has accumulated a deficit of more than one billion cubic meters of water over the past five years.

“This violation is severely harming our beautiful crops and our livestock in Texas,” Trump wrote on Monday.

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The Department of Agriculture said on Friday that Mexico had agreed to supply 250 million cubic meters of water starting next week and to work toward closing the shortfall.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, quoted in the statement, said Mexico delivered more water in a single year than it had over the previous four years combined.

Trump has said that if Mexico continues to fall short of its obligations, the United States reserves the right to impose 5% tariffs on imported Mexican products.

Mexico’s Deputy Foreign Minister for North America, Roberto Velasco, said that a severe drought in 2022 and 2023prevented the country from meeting its commitments.

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International

Several people shot in attack on Brown University campus

Several people were shot on Saturday in an attack on the campus of Brown University, in the northeastern United States, local police reported.

“Shelter in place and avoid the area until further notice,” the Providence Police Department urged in a post on X. Brown University is located in Providence, the capital of the state of Rhode Island.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social that he had been briefed on the situation and that the FBI was on the scene.

At 5:52 p.m. local time (11:52 p.m. GMT), Brown University said the situation was still “ongoing” and instructed students to remain sheltered until further notice.

After initially stating that the suspect had been taken into custody, Trump later posted a second message clarifying that local police had walked back that information. “The suspect has NOT been apprehended,” the U.S. president said.