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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11 September 2014

Homophobic murder prompts call for nationwide protests

SÃO PAULO — The body of 18-year-old João Antônio Donati was found on Wednesday on wasteland in Inhumas, a town near the Brazilian city of Goiânia, Goiás state.

According to his family, Donati – who was openly gay – had gone out on Tuesday evening to a bar with friends and never returned home.

Less than a day later, he was found dead with a badly beaten face, and plastic and paper stuffed in his mouth, which caused his death by asphyxia, according to an initial autopsy.

Local police say they are not ruling out homophobia as the cause of the murder, but denied rumours that the teenager’s body was found with a note with a homophobic message.

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