Explore Business Standard
Brazil
Brazil's Senate dealt a political blow to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday by rejecting his nomination to the Supreme Court, the first in more than 130 years. Only 34 senators voted in favour of Jorge Messias, who has been Brazil's solicitor-general since 2023 and a close legal advisor to Lula, while another 42 rejected his appointment. Messias needed 41 votes to be approved. Lula, who is seeking reelection in October for his fourth inconsecutive term, picked Messias to replace Luis Roberto Barroso, who resigned in November. Since then, Brazil's top court has operated with 10 members. Earlier, 46-year-old Messias was approved by a Senate commission, but the full house disagreed in a secret vote. Besides Lula, other members of the court were openly campaigning for the solicitor-general, who also tried to garner votes from lawmakers of Evangelical faith like him. Brazil's president will have to nominate another person, who will have to go through the same scrutiny be
A Brazilian senator said on Monday that the country's former intelligence agency chief Alexandre Ramagem was arrested by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and is pleading for him to get political asylum in the United States. Ramagem, also a former lawmaker, was sentenced in September to 16 years in prison for his role in the coup attempt by supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in 2023. Brazil's federal police said he fled the South American nation before he would have started serving his sentence. Sen. Jorge Seif said in his social media channels that he had informed the U.S. embassy in Brasilia that Ramagem should not remain in custody for he was being persecuted at home. Seif did not give details as to why the former Brazilian intelligence agency chief had been put under custody. On Monday, Ramagem appeared as in custody in ICE's online detainee database, although where he is being held was not specified. "The political persecution against President ...
As the war in Iran rattles global oil markets, Brazil is partially shielded by a decades-old buffer against shocks that is both cheap and environmentally friendly. Tens of millions of drivers here can choose between filling their tank with 100 per cent sugarcane-based ethanol or a gasoline blend that contains 30 per cent of biofuel. Brazil's massive dual-fuel fleet - consisting of vehicles capable of running on any combination of ethanol and gasoline - is unique in its scale. The program, launched in 1975 during the country's military dictatorship, has successfully evolved in democratic times to reduce dependency on foreign oil. Today, as the latest conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel enters its fifth week, nations like India and Mexico are looking at the Brazilian model as a blueprint for energy security. While consumers worldwide face steep price hikes, Brazilian gasoline prices rose just 5 per cent in March - compared to 30 per cent in the United States. Analys
India is working to expand the preferential trade agreement with South-American nation bloc Mercosur to further promote trade and investment between the two regions, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday. Mercosur is a trade bloc in Latin America comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. The India-Mercosur PTA came into effect on June 1, 2009. This PTA has limited coverage and contains only 450 tariff lines or products. Both sides are looking at expanding the scope of this pact to a full-fledged agreement. "The Mercosur region is particularly important for us, and we are working to expand our India-Mercosur preferential trade agreement, to improve market access, to grow investments on both sides, to have technology partnerships, and to engage in sports, education, culture," he said here at Ficci's India-Brazil Business Forum. The minister also said that the bilateral trade between India and Brazil is growing, but it is "sub-optimal". It grew by 25