The saga of Edward Snowden and the “hijacking” of Evo Morales’s presidential jet continues to reverberate in Bolivia, where it has reignited a controversy over Brazil’s grant of political asylum to rightwing politician Roger Pinto.
The wave of protest that has swept Brazil over the last two weeks has caught analysts and politicians by surprise. While protestors call for the end of political corruption, many of these complaints have been framed by the mainstream media.
Mass evictions and police violence at Pinheirinho, a favela on the outskirts of São Paolo, illustrate the collateral damage of Brazil's development boom in urban areas, while a conflict plays out between the state and federal government. President Dilma Rousseff's silence on the issue is deafening.
Last week Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff launched an ambitious program to eradicate extreme poverty by 2014. Under the “Brazil Without Poverty” initiative, the government will spend $12.5 billion a year to expand cash transfers and health, education, and job training services for some 16 million people (8.5% of Brazil’s population) with incomes of up to $44 per month, who have failed to benefit from Brazil’s rapidly expanding economy.
The announcement comes as Rousseff continues to be challenged, in the international spotlight, by conflicts that expose the high cost of economic progress borne by Brazil’s most impoverished and indigenous communities.
