Sue Branford

Back to Rio September 2011
Sue Branford looks at Brazil’s unsustainable development – and the potential for a new direction

War on Want: Poverty is political March 2011
On the occasion of War on Want’s 60th anniversary, Sue Branford looks at the turbulent history of this uniquely left-wing charity

Lula’s legacy October 2010
Sue Branford asks what Lula has delivered in his eight years in power

The great global land grab November 2009
The global food crisis has prompted various rich countries to start buying up land in the poorer world to secure their food supplies. As well as affecting domestic food supplies in the countries affected, Sue Branford says it could be a time bomb for the world's ability to cope with climate change

An exception to Lula’s rule March 2009
The movement of landless workers in Brazil is unique in resisting co-option by the Lula government and has retained an impressive self-reliance and independent politics. For Sue Branford it is a beacon for the left worldwide. Here she explains why

Through gritted teeth October 2006
The former head of Brazil's biggest development bank says the government is 'practising the most brutal policy of wealth and income concentration on the planet'. So what does it mean for the onetime hope of the left, President Lula, in this month's election?

Forget about Lula? December 2004
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio 'Lula' da Silva has failed to implement the radical reforms expected in the wake of his 2002 election victory. So what went wrong? Should Lula's Workers' Party no longer be thought of as a left-wing force? And where does Brazil go from here? Alfredo Saad-Filho and Sue Branford discuss

Lula critics expelled from Brazilian Workers Party February 2004
When Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva addressed January's Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, his words were music to activist ears. Neo-liberalism, he said, was "a perverse model that mistakenly separates the economic from the social, stability from growth, responsibility from justice". "We in Brazil have begun the war against hunger," he continued. "The starving cannot wait."

Crunch time for Lula October 2003
"We are following the example given to us by Lula," said Joao Paulo Rodrigues - one of the leaders of Brazil's powerful Landless Movement (MST). "He taught us how to organise the people and to struggle. He is our reference point." Rodrigues was addressing thousands of people marching for agrarian reform in Pontal do Paranapanema, a huge area of disputed land to the extreme west of the state of Sao Paulo. He was defending the MST against accusations of "lawlessness" made by enraged landowners.