Monthly Archives: September 2014

Rousseff first-round win ‘now possible’ – latest poll

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — Brazil’s incumbent president Dilma Rousseff could now be on course for a first-round win in next week’s crunch presidential elections, experts said on Friday after a major poll was published.

According to the latest Datafolha election poll ahead of the first-round vote on 5 October, Rousseff has very nearly doubled her first-round lead to 13 points and pulled ahead of her main rival in a runoff scenario.

The Datafolha poll showed 40 percent would vote for Rousseff, presidential candidate for the Workers’ Party, whereas support for Brazilian Socialist Party candidate Marina Silva had dropped to 27 percent.

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Real strengthens after Brazil increases forex interventions

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — The Brazilian real made modest gains on Wednesday after the country’s central bank said it would significantly increase its interventions on the foreign exchange market.

The move comes after the real plunged to a seven-month low of 2.408 against the U.S. dollar, the first time the currency had broken through the 2.40 mark since 12 February, when it closed at 2.423.

The real strengthened to 2.399 just after 14:00 São Paulo time on Wednesday, after weakening to 2.417 earlier in the day.

[UDPATE: By close of business on 24 September, the real had strengthened further, to 2.383.]

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Brazil inequality, unemployment buck improving trend

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — Brazil saw increases in unemployment and inequality in 2013, according to new official figures released Thursday by the country’s office of national statistics, the IBGE.

Brazil’s Gini Index, a measure of inequality by income distribution, rose from 0.496 in 2012 to 0.498 in 2013, where ‘zero’ represents perfect equality. The increase breaks a years-long downward trend in inequality experienced since 2001, when it was 0.563.

[Important update 19 Sept: The IBGE later announced it had made “serious errors” in some of its calculations, the most noteworthy of which being the Gini Index, which in fact fell to 0.495 in 2013. The IBGE said this still constituted a “stagnation”. The government has called for an inquiry into the errors.]

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Brazil ‘won’t interfere’ in Scotland independence referendum

SÃO PAULO — Brazil has no intention of taking sides in Thursday’s referendum on Scottish independence, the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations told the Anadolu Agency on Wednesday afternoon.

“Brazil will not interfere in what we consider to be an internal matter for the United Kingdom,” an official at the Itamaraty – as the ministry is known locally – said by phone from the Brazilian capital, Brasília.

When asked whether Brazil would work with an independent Scotland, the ministry spokesperson said the practicalities of recognition would be addressed in the event of secession from the UK, but that the Latin country would “obviously” establish diplomatic relations.

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VIDEO: Riots in São Paulo after families evicted from abandoned hotel

SÃO PAULO — Violent clashes involving members of the FLM social housing movement spread across central São Paulo on Tuesday, after around 200 homeless families were evicted from an abandoned hotel in which they were squatting.

It was the third time police had attempted to carry out the formal eviction of the FLM families from the Hotel Aquarius, following a court order demanding the building be taken back.

Violent clashes broke out early on Tuesday, and a number of people were arrested and injured, when police responded harshly to aggressions from the evictees, who hurled objects from the building, as well as rocks and paint at officers.

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Rousseff extends first-round lead; ties with Silva in runoff

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — Brazil’s incumbent president Dilma Rousseff has extended her first-round lead over main rival Marina Silva, but a highly-likely runoff in October’s presidential elections remains a tie, a poll of voter intentions published Monday showed.

The results of a Vox Populi poll, commissioned by Brazil’s Record television network and which surveyed 2,000 people Sept. 13-14, said Workers’ Party candidate Rousseff received 36 percent of voter support, nine points ahead of Silva, the Socialist Party candidate, who came in at 27 percent.

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Huge observation tower takes shape in Amazon rainforest

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — Work has begun on a giant observation tower in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest in a bid to boost understanding of atmospheric interactions, including global climate change, one of the project’s coordinators confirmed to the Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday.

Once complete, the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) is expected to rise some 330 metres from the forest floor, in an area around 160km northeast of the Amazonian city of Manaus, capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state.

The tower, a joint project between the Brazilian National Institute for Amazon Research (INPA) and Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, is set to gather data on the atmosphere, including greenhouse gases, aerosol particles and the weather.

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Brazil voters ‘unmoved by Petrobras scandal’

Anadolu Agency*

SÃO PAULO — Brazilian voters have been largely unmoved by accusations which surfaced this week of a major political scandal involving state-run oil company Petrobras, allegedly implicating an array of top political figures, the latest poll published on Wednesday shows.

The most recent Datafolha poll, which surveyed 10,568 eligible voters across the country on 8-9 September, shows a widening gap between the top two candidates in the first round — incumbent president and Workers’ Party (PT) candidate Dilma Rousseff, and environmentalist Socialist Party (PSB) candidate Marina Silva — who scored 36 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

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