Anna Jean Kaiser

We bring you a special edition of Inside the Americas from Brazil, which on April 28 crossed the symbolic and tragic threshold of 5,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic. There, lockdown has become highly political and has angered supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro.

REVERB is a new documentary series from CBSN Originals. Watch the latest episode, "Complicit: The Amazon Fires," in the video player above. It premieres on CBSN this Sunday, March 1, at 8 p.m., 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET.

President Jair Bolsonaro on March 29 flouted his government's social distancing guidelines against the spread of the coronavirus by mixing with supporters on the streets of Brasilia and urging them to keep the economy going.

While the Carnival parade used to be a chance for Brazilian politicians to bask in the reflected glory of the celebration, today they often find themselves at the center of samba schools’ criticisms and so are avoiding Brazil’s largest cultural show.

At rehearsal for the Paraiso de Tuiuti samba school, a dancer poses for photos with admiring onlookers while wearing the bright yellow uniform and sky-high heels of the school’s elite passista samba dancers.
Paraiso de Tuiuti has been a cradle of Carnival culture for people in the working-class area near downtown Rio de Janeiro for over 60 years. But the dancer herself is an import. Jessica Hahn-Chaplin hails from Bristol, England.

Fires in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands have ripped through the biodiverse region, consuming an area the size of London in just the past 10 days, burning some animals alive and sending others fleeing.
The inferno in the world’s largest tropical wetlands is the latest environmental disaster facing Brazil, coming after a mysterious oil spill that is afflicting beaches in the northeast and August fires that raged in the Amazon region.

WHEN SÃO PAULO went dark at 3pm on August 19th, the city’s 12m-plus inhabitants were stunned by the black cloud that descended on the city. Some took photos of the dystopian scene; others called loved ones in fear that the end was nigh. A popular religious YouTube channel told subscribers that Jesus was returning for the second coming.
Forget the end of days. This apocalypse is man-made.

IN THE MIDDLE of the afternoon on August 19th South America’s largest city went dark. Under a thick, black cloud at 3pm, the lights flickered on in São Paulo’s skyscrapers; on the motorways brake lights started to glow in the city’s bumper-to-bumper traffic, and many Paulistanos were worried. Social-media users posted pictures of the gloom, juxtaposing the dystopian afternoon sky with fictional apocalyptic places such as Gotham City from “Batman”, Mordor from “Lord of the Rings” and “the upsi...

SAO PAULO (AP) — Lax regulations, chronic short staffing and a law that muffled the voices of environmentalists on mining licenses made the devastating collapse of a dam in southeastern Brazil all but destined to happen, experts and legislators say.

Deep in the Brazilian Amazon, an environmental activist meets with a journalist who warns that a mining company is responsible for a looming environmental disaster. “People are already getting sick,” he warns, before promising to bring her documentary proof the next day.
But in the jungle, someone is watching. Driving to their next meeting, the activist hears a phone ringing in the back of her car. She opens the trunk – and finds the journalist’s dead body.
Bolsonaro backers wage war on the r...

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Several weeks after publishing explosive reports about a key member of Brazil’s far-right government, U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald was called before a congressional committee to face hostile questions.
“Who should be judged, convicted and in prison is the journalist!” shouted congresswoman Katia Sastre, an ally of President Jair Bolsonaro.
And by some accounts that wasn’t an empty threat: A conservative website reported that federal police had requested that financial...

Jair Bolsonaro is transforming Brazil into an “exterminator of the future”, the activist and politician Marina Silva has warned, as she and seven other former environment ministers denounced the far-right president’s assault on rainforest protections.
The eight former ministers – who served governments across the political spectrum over nearly 30 years – warned on Wednesday that Bolsonaro’s government was systematically trying to destroy Brazil’s environmental protection policies.
“We are wat...

Tens of thousands of students and teachers have protested across Brazil against sharp cuts to education enacted by Jair Bolsonaro’s administration – the first mass protests since the far-right president took office in January.
Brazil’s National Student Union called for demonstrations after the education ministry said it was freezing up to 30% of discretionary spending due to the government’s precarious fiscal situation.
The rally in Rio de Janeiro turned violent when police fired teargas and ...

OPERATION CAR WASH, Brazil’s sweeping anti-corruption investigation, has snared yet another president. Michel Temer, who became head of state in 2016 following the impeachment of his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, was arrested by federal police on the morning of March 21st while driving in São Paulo.

At the end of his first state visit to Washington DC this week, Jair Bolsonaro hailed his meeting with Donald Trump as a “historic moment”, claiming he was returning home with a sensation of “mission accomplished”. Today, Brazil’s far-right leader begins his second official trip – to Chile, where he is poised to receive a much less warm welcome.