Footage shows a flooded area in Rio Grande do Sul state after heavy rains have caused massive destruction in the region. Torrential downpours in the southern Brazilian state have killed dozens of people, with more than 70 still missing, as record-breaking floods devastated cities and forced thousands to leave their homes Brazil: 37 killed and dozens missing in worst floods in 80 years ..read more

More than 23,000 people forced to leave homes after heavy rains in southern Rio Grande do Sul prompt record-breaking floods Heavy rains in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul have killed 37 people, with another 74 still missing, as record-breaking floods devastated cities and forced thousands to leave their homes. It was the fourth such environmental disaster in a year, following floods in July, September and November that killed 75 people in total ..read more

Three men await trial in Brazil for the killing of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, but no date is set and Amazon activists still live in fear of violence Nearly two years after Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were murdered during a reporting trip in the Brazilian Amazon their families are still waiting for justice and activists fear their deaths will not be the last. The British journalist and the Brazilian Indigenous expert were ambushed and killed on 5 June 2022 while travelling by boat to the river town of Atalaia do Norte. They had been investigating the criminal assault on Brazil’s second ..read more

Already the most listened-to Black artist in Brazil and a favourite of Beyoncé, Ludmilla has a whole new audience after her viral Coachella show. She discusses the racism and homophobia she’s had to face getting this far In between her two-weekend debut at Coachella earlier this month, while the first concert was going viral, the Brazilian singer Ludmilla did business meetings, spent a day in Miami and kicked off new music projects. This interview took place on her way back from a short trip to the mountains surrounding the Hollywood sign, a call squeezed into a schedule that will end with a p ..read more

Australian company and its partner Vale unleashed largest spill of mining waste in history The mining company BHP has said it hopes to secure a $25.7bn (£20bn) settlement over the 2015 Samarco disaster, when the collapse of a dam left at least 19 people dead, 700 homeless and spread unprecedented levels of pollutants across the rivers and landscape of Brazil. BHP said it had offered the settlement to the Brazilian authorities in partnership with fellow miner Vale, its 50:50 joint venture partner in a local subsidiary, Samarco ..read more

President advocated ‘paying the costs’ of colonial-era crimes but government said focus was deepening international cooperation The Portuguese government has dismissed suggestions from the country’s president that it should “pay the costs” for slavery and other colonial-era crimes, saying it has no plans for reparations and will instead focus on deepening international cooperation “based on the reconciliation of brotherly peoples”. Campaigners have long appealed to Portugal to address its legacy as the European country with the longest historical involvement in the slave trade. Between the 15t ..read more

The killing of councillor Marielle Franco has inspired a generation of journalists to probe the city’s dangerous underworld Rafael Soares’s phone rang and his blood froze. “Ronnie Lessa Googled you,” a federal police contact on the other end of the line told the Brazilian reporter as he stood in his newsroom one morning in 2019. Any Rio crime journalist worth their salt knew that being investigated by such a man was extremely bad news. Lessa was reputedly one of the city’s most in-demand contract killers: a battle-hardened police combatant turned assassin whose crimes had enabled him to buy a ..read more

Brazil, Germany, Spain and South Africa sign motion for fairer tax system to deliver £250bn a year extra to fight poverty and climate crisis ‘Why we need a global tax on billionaires’ The world’s 3,000 billionaires should pay a minimum 2% tax on their fast-growing wealth to raise £250bn a year for the global fight against poverty, inequality and global heating, ministers from four leading economies have suggested. In a sign of growing international support for a levy on the super-rich, Brazil, Germany, South Africa and Spain say a 2% tax would reduce inequality and raise much-needed public f ..read more

Owner of X has used social media platform to bash judge in charge of investigations into former president Thousands of diehard supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro have hit the streets of Rio to champion their embattled leader and celebrate the new hero of their far-right movement: Elon Musk. The tech billionaire has spent recent weeks using his social network X to bash Bolsonaro’s arch-enemy, the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes is responsible for several investigations into Bolsonaro that could land the ex-president in jail, including one examining the allege ..read more

Myra Carvalho sentenced to 14 weeks’ imprisonment and banned from seeing singer perform A woman who stalked Harry Styles has been jailed and banned from seeing him perform. Myra Carvalho, who appeared at Harrow crown court sitting at Hendon magistrates court in London, was said to have stalked the singer by sending him 8,000 cards in less than a month ..read more