São Paulo

Brazil shows solidarity with France after Paris attacks

SÃO PAULO — Hundreds of Frenchmen, Brazilians and people of other nationalities gathered outside the French consulate in São Paulo today in a ceremony to remember the victims of the recent attacks on Paris.

After a minute’s silence, the crowd broke into song with an emotional rendition of the Marseillaise.

The Consul General of France in São Paulo, Damien Loras, who led the ceremony, said: “The shock was extremely big, and it is a relief at this time of pain and suffering to know that we have friends in São Paulo, that we are together and that we are not giving up on being a free and democratic country.”

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VIDEO: Violence mars São Paulo schools protest

SÃO PAULO — A protest by students and teachers from Brazil’s São Paulo state descended into violence on Thursday when masked protesters, claiming to be Black Bloc anarchists, attacked the entrance to the local government headquarters.

The violence came after around 1,500 people had marched seven kilometres from Faria Lima to the Palácio dos Bandeirantes, in the sweltering heat, to protest the restructuring of the state’s public schools.

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Huge protests in Brazil call for Rousseff’s impeachment

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Brazil on Sunday in protests against President Dilma Rousseff and her government.

Demanding an end to corruption in Rousseff’s multi-party government, many demonstrators called for Rousseff to be impeached.

Local media reported protests in more than 200 major cities across the country – the third such nationwide outpouring of dissent this year.

Police put crowds nationwide at 879,000 — more than in a similar protest in March but fewer than at one held in April.

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Avenida Paulista cycle lane inaugurated in São Paulo

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — An eagerly-awaited new cycle lane that runs along Brazil’s main business boulevard, Avenida Paulista, was inaugurated on Sunday by São Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad.

The entire thoroughfare was closed to vehicles as thousands of people took over the streets on bikes and scooters in a vibrant festival of cycling.

Haddad said the major new 2.7-kilometer (1.7-mile) cycle lane, which received $3.9 million (12.2 million reais) of government funding, was a “symbol of quality of life” in the city.

“The new cycle lane is an example from the city of São Paulo of a gesture toward sustainable future in Brazil,” the São Paulo mayor told Anadolu Agency (AA).

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Brazil cop shoots teens at close range after motorcycle chase

VICE News

SÃO PAULO — São Paulo military police have arrested an officer who was caught on camera this week firing at two teenage suspects who had fallen to the ground from a stolen motorcycle following a dangerous pursuit through the streets of Brazil’s biggest city.

It was meant to be a week when police in São Paulo State celebrated new figures that showed the lowest number of homicides on record, but the shocking end to a police chase in the south of São Paulo city — caught live from TV helicopters — quickly put paid to that.

Footage from the chase, which was broadcast live on the channels TV Bandeirantes and Record, shows a military police officer firing at and wounding the two teenagers, aged 16 and 17, at near-point-blank range after the pursuit ends abruptly.

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VIDEO: Latest MPL protest against transport fares ends in violence

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — At least six people were detained and four injured, including a minor, in São Paulo on Friday night after a largely peaceful protest against recent price rises to public transit fares turned violent.

After following a route around the historic city centre, the march returned to the Municipal Theatre, from where it had begun — and shortly afterwards chaotic scenes broke out between protesters and security forces.

Police said they responded when a flare was let off in their direction, but the protest’s organizers, the Free Fare Movement (Movimento Passe Livre, MPL), said via Twitter that the security forces fired first and that those policing the event had set out to “ruin the protest with violence.”

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Violence mars new Brazil protest over transport price hike

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — The second major protest against a recent price hike in public transit fares this year ended in violence on Friday evening, with a number of protesters arrested in central São Paulo.

The demonstration and march, called by the MPL, the Free Fare Movement, gathered 3,000 protesters, according to police estimates; organisers said 20,000 attended. An Anadolu correspondent at the scene put the total at about 5,000.

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Brazil fights ‘epidemic’ of caesarean births

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — Seven months into her pregnancy, Rosineide Moreira chose her first child’s birthday.

An hour after surgeons sliced painlessly into her, the 31-year-old chemical engineer from São Paulo was cradling her newborn daughter, Mariana, as planned — on 5 January 2015.

“We set a date that was convenient for both my husband and me,” Moreira said. “The doctor gave me the option of a natural birth, but we weighed up the pros and cons and decided we’d go with the c-section.”

Moreira’s story is not uncommon in Brazil, particularly in the country’s private health care network used by more than a quarter of the population, where 84.6 percent of babies are delivered by caesarean.

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