Militias mete out violence far from the centres of power – but their dirty work is politically useful.
A child from the Mayuruna ethnic group stands on a pier on the banks of the Atalaia do Norte River in Amazonas state, Brazil, on June 12, 2022. Federal police and military forces are searching and investigating the disappearance of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous affairs expert Bruno Araujo Pereira.
(AP Photo/Edmar Barros)
Research confirms that Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, bears heavy responsibility for the death toll in his country, at every wave of the pandemic.
Lula with activists of the Landless Movement, March 21, 2022. Though he is leading the incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro in the polls, Lula’s victory is not assured.
(LulaOfficial)
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula, enjoys a comfortable lead over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. But the Workers’ Party candidate faces many challenges.
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro meets then US president Donald Trump in 2019.
Alamy
Brazil’s president is mimicking some of former US president Donald Trump’s pre-election tactics.
A satellite captured large and small deforestation patches in Amazonas State in 2015. The forest loss has escalated since then.
USGS/NASA Landsat data/Orbital Horizon/Gallo Images/Getty Images
Until Bolsonaro’s election win, sex workers had been gaining rights. His ultra-far-right, homophobic, racist and mysoginistic views have made the reality much worse.
Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, at the launch of the National Green Growth Program in Brasilia, Brazil.
EPA-EFE/Joedson Alves
More than 600,000 Brazilians have died of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. A new report says the policies of President Jair Bolsonaro are responsible for around half.
Gemma Ware, The Conversation and Daniel Merino, The Conversation
Plus, what the study of 700-year old garbage is revealing about who lived in Islamic Andalusia. Listen to episode 20 of The Conversation Weekly.
Benjamin Netanyahu sits in the Knesset before parliament voted June 13, 2021, in Jerusalem to approve the new government that doesn’t include him,
Amir Levy/Getty Images
Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t ousted just for typical political reasons, such as other politicians’ ambitions or grievances. He was thrown out because he was seen as a threat to democracy.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko visits a hospital for COVID-19 patients, unmasked, in Minsk on Nov. 27, 2020.
Andrei Stasevich\TASS via Getty Images
The pandemic’s not over yet, but these world leaders have already cemented their place in history for failing to effectively combat the deadly coronavirus. Some of them didn’t even really try.
The Brazilian president has engineered the conditions for the virus to run rampant through the country while he pursues his own agenda.
Among the many issues that Joe Biden has to deal with, what place does he reserve for the alliance of democracies project that he mentioned during his presidential campaign?
Chip Somodevilla/AFP
The new US administration has talked about setting up an alliance of democracies. For the time being, the project seems vague. Yet such an alliance is necessary.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets US President Donald Trump at the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly.
Stefan Rousseau/PA Archive/PA Images
‘Prozac leaders’ believe their own rhetoric that “everything is going well”. But this wishful thinking can quickly contaminate organisations, and has been disastrous during the pandemic.
A new study shows how economic shocks caused by cuts to import tariff cuts in the 1990s is linked to the rise of populism in Brazil.
In this August 2016 photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, right, welcomes pro-Brexit British politician Nigel Farage to speak at a campaign rally in Jackson, Miss.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Most populists are only against the system, they aren’t for anything in particular, as Donald Trump’s presidency and Brexit proves. A progressive wave will soon be upon us in response.
Co-Director, Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, and Professor of Public Administration, Binghamton University, State University of New York