Brazil’s top prosecutor asked the Supreme Court to open an investigation into opposition Senator Aécio Neves, the country’s leading opposition figure, as the vast Petrobras corruption probe engulfed more politicians. Neves, who narrowly lost the 2014 presidential election to Dilma Rousseff, was previously included in a list of some 50 politicians thought to have taken bribes originating from state-run companies.
The massive bribery scandal that has enraged Brazilians and pushed President Dilma Rousseff to the verge of impeachment is just one flashpoint among many right now across Latin America, according to a piece from The Washington Post.
Brazilian prosecutors charged political strategist Joao Santana, the architect of President Dilma Rousseff’s 2010 and 2014 election victories, and 16 others with corruption on Thursday as part of a massive graft investigation.
Brazil's Supreme Court on Wednesday suspended a meeting that was to decide whether former President Lula da Silva can be his successor's chief of staff. The delay came three days after the lower house of Congress voted to begin impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff. She is accused of using accounting tricks in managing the federal budget.
Politicians from seven parties in Brazil were named as clients of a Panama-based firm at the center of a massive data leak over possible tax evasion, O Estado de S.Paulo said on Monday.
Brazil's embattled oil company Petrobras said it will launch a voluntary layoff program to cut an estimated 12,000 jobs in a bid to save up to 33 billion reais ($9.20 billion) by 2020. The program will cost 4.4 billion reais and is open to all employees, according to a statement from Petrobras, which has been hard hit by low oil prices, refinery project problems and a massive price-fixing, bribery and political kickback scandal.
Troubled Brazilian construction company Odebrecht SA plans to sell about 12 billion reais (US$3.4 billion) in assets to help meet its debt obligations, according to the builder’s chief executive officer. The company had a gross debt of 85 billion reais in 2014, the most recent figure available, but much of it is long-term debt and the biggest payments start only in 2025, Odebrecht CEO Newton de Souza said in an interview published Friday in the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.
The Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) filed a request on Monday to impeach President Dilma Rousseff for obstructing justice, fiscal accounting tricks and granting international soccer body FIFA tax-exempt status during the 2014 World Cup.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff condemned the “fascist methods” of opponents seeking her ouster and said the country's current political crisis would leave a “scar” if not resolved democratically. In an interview with several foreign media groups, Rousseff said she was being pressured to resign because her rivals wanted “to avoid the difficulty of removing -- unduly, illegally and criminally -- a legitimately elected president from power”.
Former leader Lula da Silva was sworn in as President Dilma Rousseff's chief of staff on Thursday amid a deepening crisis in Brazil as protests against his appointment continued for a second day and a judge sought to block the move.