Brazil

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

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

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

Tropical Blair or Axis of Hope? December 2006
Hilary Wainwright returns from Sao Paulo to report on how social movements are preparing for President Lula's second term

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?

Carbon credits and the green desert September 2006
As the struggle for land and water resources in Brazil intensifies, Heidi Bachram discovers that the new carbon market is an added burden for vulnerable communities.

Lula’s lament October 2005
The success of the Brazilian Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), or Workers Party, acted as a beacon to the left worldwide. Now it has been revealed that it was governing on the basis of systematic corruption. Hilary Wainwright reports on how the quest for power perverted the PT and subverted democracy

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."

UK campaigners join Amazon battle February 2004
An international tribal rights group is calling on the Brazilian government to take a stand against corrupt local politicians and Western businesses following the kidnap of three Catholic missionaries who supported indigenous Indians in the northern Amazon.

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.

New dawn in Brazil December 2002
By electing Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva with a huge majority, the Brazilian people have overwhelmingly rejected the "Washington consensus" and given a huge boost to Latin America's burgeoning emancipatory movement.