Huge numbers of protesters demanded Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's resignation Sunday, blaming her and the leftist Workers' Party for runaway corruption and looming recession in Latin America's biggest country.
José Dirceu, once one of the most powerful figures in the Workers' Party, will be held under preventive detention. He is serving the remainder of a prison term under house arrest for his role in a previous cash-for-votes scandal known as the "Mensalão," or "big monthly payment."
At the center of this story is another state-run company, Eletrobras, and its Angra III project, a nuclear power plant tucked into a bay with jungle-covered islands that have become something of a playground for Brazil's rich and famous.
Latin America has been plagued by corruption for centuries, ever since it emerged from what the Mexican poet Octavio Paz called the “patrimonialist” nature of Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule. What is different today is the response to it, with societies and institutions refusing to remain complicit in corruption, or resigning themselves to its inevitability.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has lost support from Senate Chief Renan Calheiros and his lower-house counterpart, Eduardo Cunha, amid growing discontent with a recession and a corruption probe into legislators.
China Development Bank and the Asian country's export credit financing agency agreed to provide a total of $7 billion in financing for Brazil's state-run energy company Petroleo Brasileiro. And Tianjin Airlines signed a contract to buy 22 jets from São Paulo-based Embraer.
BRASILIA - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff kicked off a second term Thursday, vowing to tackle corruption and revamp the economy as her government reels from a series of setbacks.
These might be the last "oles" President Dilma Rousseff will hear for a while. Brazil's economy is in a ditch, inflation is 6.75 percent, running two points above target. Unemployment is low, not because of an opportunity bonanza but a shrinking labor pool as idled workers give up job hunting.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party, established a convincing lead in the first round of the country's presidential election Sunday — but it was not enough to elect her outright.
RIO DE JANEIRO — With just days to go before the presidential election here, a growing scandal has placed a number of issues center stage: They involve corruption, political machinations with the state-controlled oil company, and delays and overspending on a multibillion-dollar oil refinery that Brazil desperately needs.