Brazil's Labour Minister Onyx Lorenzoni has signed a resolution banning the dismissal of workers because they are not vaccinated against COVID-19. The ministerial document also labels such a requirement on the part of employers as “discriminatory.”
Two more Brazilian government ministers said on Monday they had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, underscoring a struggle to limit the world's second-worst outbreak even among the political elite.
Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday he wants French President Emmanuel Macron to retract “insults” against him before he considers accepting aid from the Group of Seven nations who offered US$20 million to help fight forest fires in the Amazon.
Brazil rejected aid from G7 countries to fight wildfires in the Amazon, with a top official telling French President Emmanuel Macron to take care of “his home and his colonies.”
Brazil’s government is expected to detail its plans to release funds from the workers’ severance fund, known as FGTS, on July 24, the presidential chief of staff Bolsonaroaid. In a press conference organized to mark 200 days of Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, Lorenzoni added the government wants to make sure that the release of part of the assets in the workers’ funds will not hurt home financing. FGTS accounts for almost half of the funds allocated to the financing of homes in Brazil.
The government of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced on Tuesday a financial package aimed at staving off a potential truckers' strike. Chief of Staff Onyx Lorenzoni said the Brazilian Development Bank will be providing US$ 128 million in credit to truckers and that the Ministry of Infrastructure will spend US$ 514 million on improving roads.
The Brazilian Senate elected a pro-government lawmaker as their chief, potentially boosting President Jair Bolsonaro’s reform agenda but also leaving the administration’s strength in the upper house in question. Bolsonaro congratulated Davi Alcolumbre, saying his challenge is to act on Brazilian voters’ desire for change.
Brazilian new passports will no longer have the symbol of Mercosur as currently they do together with those from the other member states, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The announcement was made by cabinet chief Onyx Lorenzoni, during a press conference in which he anticipated the targets for the first hundred days of president Jair Bolsonaro's administration.
The new government in Brazil, headed by President Jair Bolsonaro, has initiated the process of firing any “communists” and socialists working as contractors in government departments contending those holding opposition ideological views cannot properly execute its goals.
Brazil's right-wing President-elect Jair Bolsonaro named a pro-life evangelical pastor to head a new ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights that will also take over the agency looking after the country's 850,000 indigenous people. Damares Alves, a lawyer, preacher and congressional aide, is a staunch opponent of legalizing abortion, which is allowed only in cases of rape, anencephaly or when the mother's life is in danger.