As Julian Assange's extradition approaches, let's remember how Wikileaks exposed Sergio Moro's role in the birth of the US/Curitiba Public Prosecutors Lava Jato investigation, which destroyed key sectors of Brazil's development strategy and helped put Bolsonaro in power. ctd
"This is the first regional conference conducted under the Projeto PONTES (Translation: Bridges Project) umbrella, a new training concept post introduced in February 2009 to consolidate bi-lateral law enforcement training."
"Judge Sergio Moro then discussed the 15 most common issues he sees in money laundering cases in the Brazilian Courts. U.S. presenters discussed [...] formal and informal international cooperation [...], plea bargaining,"
In 2009, coerced plea bargain testimony was illegal - It was legalized for Lava Jato. Informal int. cooperation is a crime. US Asst. Attorney Gen. Kenneth Blanco's admission that it was happening led to the first motion to dismiss all charges against Lula. brasilwire.com/us-admits-role…
Dilma Rousseff now says one of her biggest regrets is legalizing coerced plea bargain testimony in 2013. In 2009, when US provided training to Sergio Moro on it, it was still illegal. Was Rousseff tricked into legalizing it to advance the coup? cartacapital.com.br/politica/infel…
Returning to the cable: "Two large urban centers with proven judicial support for illicit financing cases, in
particular Sao Paulo, Campo Grande, or Curitiba, should be selected as the location for this type of training."
"Then task forces can be formed, and an actual investigation used as the basis for training that would sequentially progress from investigation through the courtroom presentation and conclusion of the case."
"This would give the Brazilians actual experience in working on a long term proactive illicit financing task force, and allow access to U.S. experts for on-going guidance and support."
It didn't take the Operation Spoofing leaks to show the US DOJ was a partner in Lava Jato. DOJ started posting information on this on its own website in 2016. Thanks to Julian Assange, we know a lot more about how this illegal collaboration started. wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/0…
Essentially, the US DOJ "trained" lava jato taskforce to help overthrow a democratically elected president and install someone to open access to Petroleum reserves to US multinationals, and how to jail an innocent presidential front-runner to install a subfascist US boot-licker.
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Hackers invaded the Brazilian health system last night and deleted 50 TB of data. Citizens can no longer prove vaccination for international travel. Lula switched goverment systems to Linux in 2003. After the 2016 coup, Michel Temer switched back to Microsoft- at taxpayer expense
Update (7 hours later). The Health dpt site is back online and hackers, who call themselves the Lapsus$ Group were bluffing about the 50 TB of stolen data. Meanwhile, they've hacked into the Education Ministry and insulted Bolsonaro. terra.com.br/noticias/brasi…
Here is a break down of the criminal charges against Brazil's far right President Jair Bolsonaro levied in the Parliamentary Covid 19 investigation and their maximum sentences. Thread
1) Exacerbating an epidemic resulting in deaths - maximum sentence of 30 years; 2) Ignoring implementation of preventative sanitary measures (an infraction) - maximum sentence of 1 year; 3) Charlatanism (infraction) - maximum sentence of 1 year.
4) Inciting criminal behavior (infraction) - maximum sentence of 6 months; 5) Counterfeiting of documents - maximum sentence of 5 years; 6) Irregular use of public funds (infraction) - maximum sentence of 3 months; 7) Malfeasance - maximum sentence of 1 year.
A bill for an amendment to improve oversight of public prosecutors - a response to Lava Jato which crippled the economy and broke laws to help elect Bolsonaro - was blocked in Congress yesterday, after PSOL broke from the left and sided with Partido Novo to unanimously oppose it.
The only other two parties to unanimously oppose the bill, which lost by 11 votes and was unanimously supported by the Workers Party (PT) and the Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B), were the tiny Partido Verde and Rede, which have 4 members of Congress between them.
For more on self-proclaimed "left" politicians and their support for the US DOJ/FBI/Curitiba Public Prosectors Lava Jato investigation, see this: brasilwire.com/whither-the-la…
Back to the stone age. Brazil is self sufficient in natural gas, but Chicago Boy Finance Minister Paulo Guedes decided to irrationally link prices to the international market rate. Results: astronomical price hikes mean more Brazilians are now cooking with wood than with gas.
Not only is sad result of neoliberalism bad for the environment in a country where the President has ushered in a new era of out of control, man made forest fires in the Amazon rainforest, it is leading to a rise in respiratory infections and burn accidents in children.
Brazil has the World's largest natural gas reserves but the dismantling of Petrobras, which started when the US DOJ-backed Lava Jato operation began crippling strategic sectors of Brazilian industry, has left the company without enough production facilities to process it.
As we near the start of the last year of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's mandate, @renato_rovai writes in @revistaforum that,"he isn't going to pull off a coup, he won't be impeached, he won't resign and he won't be reelected."
I think one would have to be naive to think, after refusing to bring over 130 formal impeachment requests to the floor for vote during the first 3 years of Bolsonaro's mandate, that the center-right recipients of $billions in patronage who control Congress will do it now.
Most journalists understanding of economics is limited to a handful of 19th Century clichés. The Brazilian economy has gone through commodities boom/bust cycles for 500 years. Attributing the Workers Party's success to a commodities boom ignores the 2008 Great Recession. Thread
Bahia demonstrates the limitations of commodities booms. For centuries its production of export commodities like Cocoa and Tobacco generated huge wealth for a handful of European/ Brazilian businessmen while the vast majority of the population suffered in abject poverty.
In other words, as the last 500 years of economic history of the developing world shows, commodities booms without any kind of redistribution measures are absolutely useless in reducing poverty. Example: mining boom in the Congo.