International
Brazil election court throws out Bolsonaro challenge, fines party
| By AFP |
Brazil’s top electoral authority on Wednesday threw out a challenge by President Jair Bolsonaro’s party against his election defeat and fined it more than $4 million for bringing the case “in bad faith.”
The head of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), judge Alexandre de Moraes, ruled the far-right president’s Liberal Party had presented “absolutely false” arguments in its case, which he said was aimed at “encouraging criminal and anti-democratic movements” by Bolsonaro supporters seeking to fight the election result.
The Liberal Party (PL) brought the case Tuesday, saying an auditing firm it hired had found “irreparable operating discrepancies” in around 280,000 electronic voting machines used in the October 30 runoff election, which Bolsonaro lost to veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The PL called for electoral authorities to exclude all votes cast on five models of voting machine manufactured before 2020, alleging they gave a suspiciously large advantage of nearly five percentage points to Lula.
Party lawyer Marcelo Bessa said excluding those votes would change the election result, from a 1.8-percentage-point win for Lula to a 2.1-percentage-point win for Bolsonaro.
Moraes responded with a withering rejection, accusing the PL of seeking to fuel ongoing protests by Bolsonaro supporters who have blocked highways and rallied outside army barracks calling for a military intervention to keep the incumbent in power.
“There is a total lack of supporting evidence” in the PL’s claim, Moraes said in a statement.
The case “is blatantly offensive to the democratic rule of law, and was brought recklessly, for the purpose of encouraging criminal and anti-democratic movements… responsible for grave threats and violence,” he added.
He fined the PL’s coalition 22.9 million reais ($4.2 million), and ordered an investigation of party leader Valdemar da Costa Neto and the head of the firm behind the audit, the Legal Vote Institute.
Bolsonaro, who has regularly alleged Brazil’s voting system is plagued by fraud — without providing evidence — was initially silent for nearly 48 hours after his defeat.
He then made a terse statement saying he would respect the constitution, but has not explicitly conceded defeat or congratulated Lula, who is due to be sworn in on January 1.
International
Court sends Keiko Fujimori to trial for money laundering in Peru
December 3 |
Judge Víctor Zúñiga issued on Friday an order to prosecute former Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori for money laundering to the detriment of the State.
“The Fourth Court of National Preparatory Investigation issued an indictment against Keiko Fujimori, 38 natural persons and two legal entities: Fuerza Popular political party and MVV Bienes Raíces, for money laundering to the detriment of the State,” the entity said.
In 2021, the Peruvian Public Prosecutor’s Office requested more than 30 years in prison for Fujimori in the Cocktails case.
The entity pointed out that the former presidential candidate used cocktail parties, raffles and voluntary contributions to finance electoral campaigns.
Vicente Silva Checa and Pier Figari will also attend the trial as defendants, according to the magistrate.
Fujimori has not yet made any statements regarding the judge’s decision to send her to trial for money laundering.
International
President Lula calls Israel’s attacks on Gaza genocide
December 3 |
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva on Friday described Israel’s continuous aggressions against Gaza as genocide.
Before the media Al Jazeera, Lula stressed that this is not a conventional war, but a genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The South American president denounced the murder of more than 15,000 civilians, including 7,000 Palestinian children.
On the other hand, Lula affirmed that the operation carried out by Hamas against Israel did not give the latter the right to kill thousands of innocent people.
In addition, the president singled out the United States for complicity in Israel’s ongoing crimes.
It is worth mentioning that Hamas indicated in a communiqué that Washington gave Israel the green light to continue the attacks against Gaza, following the visit of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
International
Fire reduction trend noted in Brazilian Amazonia
December 2 |
The Brazilian Amazon recorded 13,943 forest fires in November 2023, a figure 26 percent higher than the same period in 2022 and the highest for this month in the last six years, although with a tendency to a gradual decrease compared to indicators of last September and October.
According to a report issued this Friday by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the number of hot spots measured by satellites was not so high for this month since the 14,105 measured in November 2017.
The agency specified that they decreased compared to October this year (22,061 hot spots) and were almost half of those of September (26,452) However, they remain at a high level.
According to INPE experts, this annual increase is due to a severe drought in the Amazon which, according to the Center for Monitoring Natural Disasters and Alerts (Cemaden), could be historic.
This situation is a consequence of the El Niño phenomenon, which generates abundant rainfall in some parts of the planet and strong droughts in others. This year was more intense than in 2015 and 2016, when the biome experienced its worst water crisis.
Despite this, thanks to the efforts made by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government to stop the devastation, the number of fires accumulated in the Brazilian Amazon between January and November this year (93,945) was down 16.3 percent compared to the data for the first 11 months of 2022 (112,077).
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