MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Bolsonaro asks Congress to declare state of emergency to free federal funds from spending caps
Minutes before his tweet, his office issued a statement saying that the federal government would ask Congress to authorize a state of emergency until Dec. 31 Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday his second coronavirus test was negative and his government asked Congress to authorize a state of emergency that would allow it to scrap fiscal targets and free up funds to combat the virus’ spread.
Bolsonaro tested negative in an initial examination last week after his communications secretary Fabio Wajngarten, who was part of a presidential party that visited Florida and met with U.S. President Donald Trump last week, tested positive.
“I inform that my second test for COVID-19 came back negative,” he wrote on Twitter. “Good night to everyone.”
Minutes before his tweet, his office issued a statement saying that the federal government would ask Congress to authorize a state of emergency until Dec. 31.
The move places Brazil in a growing list of nations that have directed staggering amounts of money to protect their economies and prop up their health systems from the coronavirus outbreak.
“In view of the permanent monitoring of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to increase public spending to protect the health and jobs of Brazilians and the prospect of falling revenues, the Federal Government will request the National Congress to recognize the state of emergency,” a statement from the president’s office said.
The state of emergency would free the federal government from abiding by strict spending caps, allowing it to direct more money to the relief effort. Despite that, the government also said it remained committed to fiscal discipline.
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Read all commentsIt makes you wonder, in this perfect world, why the President would want the release of unlimited funds to combat the effect of a disease that he himself keeps reminding us is “no worse than a strong dose of the flu.”
Mar 18th, 2020 - 12:43 pm 0Why are some people are so hopelessly negative in this time of crisis? Just how evil and idiotic can anyone be?
Mar 18th, 2020 - 05:29 pm 0”SCL/Cambridge Analytica: What is the UK Government still hiding in Brazil?
Mar 23rd, 2020 - 05:17 pm 0Kaiser emailed the British consul on 25 October 2016: “I am writing to introduce my Managing Director Mark Turnbull (copied) of the SCL Group, a London-based strategic communications firm working on elections, defense projects, and commercial marketing globally”.
“Behavioural objectives
Mark Turnbull has a career history of overseeing psychological operations projects on behalf of the UK and US governments, including propaganda campaigns in the Middle East and a spell at the disgraced PR firm Bell Pottinger, which was eventually exposed for deliberately stoking ethnic tensions in South Africa.”
British Deputy Consul-General Rosangela Escobar responded to Kaiser some hours later on 25 October 2016 to “confirm the meeting with our Consul General Joana Crellin and Lauren Frater, Head of Team, Sao Paulo”. The meeting was arranged for 26 October at the Centro Brasileiro Britânico.
Inaugurated in the year 2000, the Centro Brasileiro Britânico is located in the Pinheiros neighbourhood of São Paulo, and houses the FCO’s Consulate, the British Council, BBC Brasil and, according to information provided to the authors, UK Intelligence agencies.
Though communications between Cambridge Analytica and the UK Foreign Office in Brazil are unarguably within the public interest, two Freedom of Information requests have revealed that the FCO holds “no record” of the meetings.
In response to another FOI request concerning all communication between the FCO in Brazil and Cambridge Analytica during 2016 and 2018, the FCO claimed:
“We have carried out searches both in the FCO in London and our offices in Brazil and we can confirm that we do not hold any communications or contracts between FCO and Cambridge Analytica. Therefore, if we did hold any information it has now been deleted”.
http://www.brasilwire.com/scl-cambridge-analytica-what-is-the-uk-government-hiding-in-brazil/
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