New president, same crises in Brazil

BRASÍLIA (AFP) - 

It could be a short honeymoon for Brazil's interim president Michel Temer, who replaces a deeply unpopular leader but inherits many of the same problems.

Brazilians are hoping their country can finally move on from a months-long battle over suspended president Dilma Rousseff's impeachment, which distracted their political leaders from a laundry list of woes, including the worst recession in decades.

But although Temer has the backing of the business world, political analysts say he will likely hit many of the same stumbling blocks as did Rousseff, who was suspended by the Senate on Thursday for up to 180 days pending an impeachment trial on charges of hiding budget shortfalls.

Temer, who has spent his career in the wings of power but never at center stage, will also face some new challenges all his own.

- Sick of politics -

A 75-year-old veteran of the center-right, Temer is just about as unpopular as Rousseff, the leftist leader he served as vice president in an awkward, ultimately aborted alliance.

While Rousseff's approval rating has tumbled below 10 percent, Temer would receive just one to two percent of the vote in presidential elections, according to a recent poll.

He has a reputation in Brasilia as a deft backdoor negotiator, but is short on charisma and was all-but unknown to many voters until recently.

Condemned by Rousseff as the "coup-monger in chief," he could struggle to heal the wounds of the impeachment battle and restore faith in a political system many Brazilians see as hopelessly corrupt.

"He will inherit a good part of Brazilians' dissatisfaction with the kind of traditional politics he represents," said Thiago Bottino, an analyst at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. "It's not going to be easy for him to present himself as a new man with no relation to the felled leadership."

Lincoln Secco, a historian at the University of Sao Paulo, said Temer would also face another problem: Rousseff.

"For five to six months, we'll have the president (Rousseff), but she won't exercise that function. Temer will have the president's shadow hanging over him, pressuring his government to achieve fast results," he said.

- Tanking economy -

The Temer administration's greatest hope is to revive the tanking economy, Latin America's largest.

The business world has been rubbing its hands at the prospect of a more market-friendly government after years of left-leaning policy and ballooning deficits.

Brazil is in the middle of its second year of recession and is not forecast to return to growth until 2018.

To turn things around, Temer has proposed a "bridge to the future" that includes spending cuts and free-market reforms.

But getting such changes through the fragmented political system will be tough. And the pain may get worse before it gets better.

- Divided society -

A giant country of huge inequalities, Brazil has had a transformative 13 years under Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose social programs helped lift tens of millions of people from poverty.

To some, Temer looks like a throw-back to another era.

"The most complicated issue the new government faces is the possible rollback of the rights we've gained," Debora Messenberg of the University of Brasilia said. "There's a lot of suspicion that the advances made in recent years under the Workers' Party -- social gains, labor rights -- will recede."

"I think social movements will take to the streets," she added. "They're not going to make life easy for Temer."

- Lurking corruption probe -

Temer's party, the PMDB, has been broadsided by the corruption investigation upending Brazilian politics, which uncovered a multi-billion-dollar bribery and kickbacks scheme centered on state oil company Petrobras.

The explosive investigation, dubbed Operation Car Wash ("Lava Jato"), was the main rallying cry for the movement to oust Rousseff -- although she has not been implicated herself.

Many of those protesters are just as disgusted with Temer's party, a symbol of pork-barrel politics and backdoor deals.

Although the interim president is not under investigation, key witnesses have told prosecutors he participated in the scheme.

"The ongoing Lava Jato probe remains the largest vulnerability for a Michel Temer administration," said analyst Christopher Garman of consultancy Eurasia Group.

by Damian Wroclavsky

© 2016 AFP

Brazil Senators suspend President Rousseff, back impeachment trial

Brazilian Senators on Thursday suspended President Dilma Rousseff from the country’s highest office as they backed a motion to put her on trial for using accounting tricks to hide large budget deficits.

Rousseff, Brazil’s first woman president, could be impeached at the end of the trial and thus end 13 years of left-wing rule over Latin America's biggest nation.

As a result of the Senate's vote Rousseff must immediately cede power to vice-president-turned-enemy Michel Temer, who is not a member of her Worker’s Party (PT).

“Today Brazilians are waking up to a new political reality,” said FRANCE 24 correspondent Richard Tompsett from Rio de Janeiro.

The vote came after a nearly 22-hour debate in the Senate closed with an overwhelming 55-22 vote against Rousseff, with pro-impeachment senators breaking into applause.

“Throughout the marathon debate that preceded the vote, Senators came up one by one, making their arguments,” Tompsett said. “The tone was much more sombre than the raucous vote in the lower house last month."

Brazilians remained bitterly divided over Rousseff’s future.

Tensions were plain to see outside Congress, where police erected a giant metal fence to keep apart small rival groups of demonstrators.

Riot police pepper sprayed a group of Rousseff supporters late Wednesday and pro- and anti-impeachment protesters also scuffled briefly in Rio.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Brazilian Senate set to launch Rousseff impeachment

BRASÍLIA (AFP) - 

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was only hours from possibly being suspended at the start of an impeachment trial Wednesday in a political crisis paralyzing Latin America's largest country.

Her government lawyer lodged a last-ditch appeal with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but it was unclear whether the court would even respond in time.

Barring a dramatic twist in events, the Senate was to start debating impeachment at approximately 9:00 am (1200 GMT), with voting expected either late at night or in the early hours of Thursday.

A majority of more than half of the senators in the 81-member chamber would trigger the opening of a trial and Rousseff's automatic suspension for up to six months. In the final judgement, removing her from office would require a two-thirds majority.

She is accused of breaking budgetary laws by taking loans to boost public spending and mask the sinking state of the economy during her tight 2014 re-election campaign.

Rousseff says the accounting maneuvers were standard practice for many governments in the past and describes the impeachment as a coup mounted by her vice president, Michel Temer, who will take over if she is suspended.

A onetime Marxist guerrilla tortured under Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s, Rousseff therefore faces possibly her final day in power Wednesday.

Her official agenda released daily to the public contained a solitary item: "Internal paperwork."

- Fight to the end -

Temer, whose center-right PMDB party broke off its uneasy partnership Rousseff's leftist Workers' Party, has already prepared a new government, saying his priority will be to take action on the moribund economy, now in its worst recession for decades.

Rousseff vows to resist.

"I am going to fight with all my strength, using all means available," she told a women's forum in Brasilia on Tuesday.

Rousseff called her opponents "people (who) can't win the presidency through a popular vote" and claimed they had a "project to dismantle" social gains made by millions of poor during 13 years of Workers' Party rule.

In an effort to cripple Temer's ambitions, Rousseff allies went to the top electoral court asking that the probable acting president be barred from appointing his own ministers, Folha newspaper reported late Tuesday.

However, analysts say Rousseff's fightback probably comes too late and that she had already burned many of her political bridges before the crisis erupted with an awkward style and inability to negotiate.

The country's first female president has also become deeply unpopular with most Brazilians, who blame her for presiding over the recession and a massive corruption scandal centered on the state oil company Petrobras.

- Barricade -

In an already chaotic week in which the interim speaker of the lower house tried to order the upper house to halt impeachment proceedings -- only to back down hours later -- there was no patching over the sprawling South American country's deep divisions.

Workers' Party faithful on Tuesday burned tires and blocked roads in Brasilia and in Sao Paulo in a potential taste of more street trouble to come.

Lawmaker Jose Guimaraes, a Rousseff ally, said that despite almost certain defeat in the initial Senate vote, the impeachment trial itself would be an all-out fight.

"We will have 180 days in the Senate, talking with every one of them, to get them to change their minds," he told journalists, warning that "our main fight today will be in the streets."

Police responded to heightened tension by building a huge metal barricade outside Congress in Brasilia to separate rival groups of protesters during the Senate vote. A separation corridor 80 meters (yards) wide and more than a kilometer (half a mile) long will also be enforced.

A square where major government institutions are located will be declared a "national security zone" made off-limits to the public, the Brasilia security authorities announced.

- Olympics worries -

A veteran center-right politician, Temer is also highly unpopular and would inherit the crumbling economy as well as a resentful left.

Although he has made no public pronouncements in the immediate run-up to the Senate vote, he has been negotiating with allies about ministerial posts and measures Congress would pass to try to breathe some life into the economy.

Stocks in Sao Paulo rose more than four percent as the markets bet that Rousseff was on her way out, to be replaced by a vice president seen as more business friendly.

The Senate impeachment trial could last months, running through the Olympics, which open in Rio de Janeiro on August 5 -- the first Games to be held in South America.

Fears over the Zika virus, high crime in Rio, pollution in the sailing and some swimming venues, along with a budget crunch, are already hurting preparations for the Games, together with worries political instability could overshadow the event.

by Sebastian Smith

© 2016 AFP

Philippines' Duterte set for wild foreign policy ride

MANILA (AFP) - 

After proposing a jet-ski mission to defend remote islands against China, daring the United States to sever ties and joking about burning Singapore's flag, Rodrigo Duterte is set for a wild foreign policy ride as the next Philippine president.

The firebrand politician stormed to victory in national elections this week using an incendiary brand of populism and nationalism that his aides insist he will moderate once he has the keys to the presidential palace on June 30.

Duterte branded the pope a "son of a whore" and angrily told the US and Australian ambassadors to "shut their mouths" after they criticised a joke he made about rape.

The 71-year-old offered no apologies when asked by AFP on election night for a message to members of the international diplomatic community who may be concerned.

"It is not to contribute to the comfort of other nations. I have to make the Filipino comfortable first before I give you comfort, outside my country," he said.

Duterte, the long-time mayor of southern Davao city, thrilled his supporters but outraged his critics with a series of diplomatic firebombs on the campaign trail.

While his insults caused gasps in various capitals, his foray into a delicate maritime dispute with China -- involving many nations but with the Philippines a key player -- may have the most far-reaching impact.

Playing to nationalist sentiment, Duterte vowed to ride a jet ski to plant a Philippine flag on remote South China Sea islands, where Beijing is accused of using bully-boy tactics to intimidate smaller nations with rival claims.

But he also signalled a potentially signficant reversal of government policy, saying he would be prepared to hold direct talks with China on the issue -- potentially shattering the united front of claimant nations backed by the United States.

"By the Philippines breaking ranks over this issue, it might affect... efforts to fend off China?s intrusion. There is a need to be united over this issue,? said Faisal Syam Hazis, head of the Centre for Asia Studies at the National University of Malaysia.

- Insults fly -

Other foreign policy stumbles sprang from Duterte's no-holds-barred election pitch. At one rally he recounted how he had personally killed inmates who had staged a 1989 Davao prison riot.

But he also said that in the aftermath of the riot he discovered that an Australian missionary had been raped and murdered.

"I was mad she was raped. But she was so beautiful. I thought: 'The mayor should have been first'," said Duterte, who on the campaign trail also repeatedly boasted about his mistresses and sexual prowess.

The Australian and US ambassadors criticised the comments, triggering a furious reaction from the contender, who told them not to interfere and raised the prospect of cutting diplomatic ties.

Duterte also enraged Singapore when he said at a rally he would burn its flag in reaction to its embassy disavowing a hoax statement which purportedly said it endorsed him.

- A different Duterte? -

Diplomats can expect a different Duterte when he becomes president, according to his spokesman, Peter Lavina.

"You have to understand the Philippine style of elections. The context is most of our politicians need to communicate to our audience so many of our politicians sing and dance," Lavina told reporters on Tuesday when explaining that the Singapore flag burning remark was a joke.

"Some make jokes, some make funny faces. Some dress outrageously. So it is all in this context that all these jokes, bantering, happen during the campaign. We don't expect the same attitude of our officials thereafter."

Lavina acknowledged there were "problems" with the US, Australian and -- particularly -- the Singaporean embassies.

"We need to send out personal envoys to open lines of communication and express openness to cooperate," he said.

However on election night Duterte appeared to still be in campaign mode when asked if would seek to fix ties with the United States and Australia.

"I will not mend," he said. "It is up to them if they want to mend their ways."

- China thaw? -

In China, at least, his foreign policy platform has been welcomed -- despite the jet ski jibe.

Relations went into deep freeze during the current administration of President Benigno Aquino due to the maritime dispute which has seen Washington send warships close to the islands.

"The United States will be concerned if, in the new regime, they have a leader that is more willing to negotiate some of the... red lines that are shaping up around the South China Sea disputes," said Ashley Townshend from the University of Sydney.

The Communist Party-backed Global Times on Wednesday sounded a hopeful note.

"He opposes the idea of going to war with China, wants direct negotiation with Beijing about the South China Sea, and doesn't believe in solving the conflict through an international tribunal," it said.

"If there is anything that can be changed by Duterte, it will be diplomacy."

by Karl Malakunas

© 2016 AFP

Just return stolen assets, Nigeria's Buhari tells UK PM

LONDON (AFP) - 

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said Wednesday that he did not want an apology from Prime Minister David Cameron for calling his country "fantastically corrupt", but said Britain could return assets stolen by officials who fled to London.

"I am not going to demand any apology from anybody. What I am demanding is the return of the assets," Buhari told an anti-corruption event hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.

"This is what I'm asking for. What would I do with an apology?" he said to cheers from many civil society organisations and Nigeria delegates in the audience.

The British prime minister is hosting a major anti-corruption summit in London on Thursday, which Buhari is attending alongside Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

But in a diplomatic gaffe, Cameron was caught on camera on Tuesday saying that the leaders of some "fantastically corrupt" countries were attending.

"Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world," he was filmed telling Queen Elizabeth II at an event at Buckingham Palace.

Buhari has embarked on a widespread anti-corruption campaign since taking office one year ago, and in his speech to Wednesday's Commonwealth event thanked Britain for helping recover stolen assets taken abroad.

"Even before this government came in, the UK took the initiative of arresting some former governors of some of the states in Nigeria," Buhari said.

He noted the case of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of the oil-rich Bayelsa state who was detained in London on charges of money-laundering in 2005, but skipped bail by disguising himself as a woman.

But Buhari said that in general, "our experience has been that repatriation of corrupt proceeds is very tedious, time consuming, costly".

He added that corruption was a "hydra-headed monster" that was "endemic and systematic" in Nigeria, but said he was adopting a "zero tolerance" approach.

© 2016 AFP

Trump says to visit Israel 'soon': newspaper

JERUSALEM (AFP) - 

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will visit Israel "soon", he told an Israeli newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday.

"Yes, I will be coming soon," Trump said without giving further details in response to a question from the Israel Hayom newspaper, a freesheet considered close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump had scheduled a visit to Israel for late December but postponed it a few days before following an uproar over his proposal to bar all Muslims from entering the United States.

"I have decided to postpone my trip to Israel and to schedule my meeting with @Netanyahu at a later date after I become president of the US," he tweeted at the time.

In the interview published on Wednesday, Trump renewed his criticism of US President Barack Obama over a July nuclear deal with Iran that was vigorously opposed by the Israeli prime minister.

"The current threat against Israel is more important than ever" because of "President Obama's policy towards Iran and the nuclear deal," he said.

"I think the people of Israel have suffered a lot because of Obama."

White House hopefuls often visit Israel as part of efforts to bolster their foreign policy credentials.

© 2016 AFP

India's Supreme Court orders disaster fund for drought-hit zones

NEW DELHI (AFP) - 

India's top court criticised the government Wednesday for failing to set up a disaster fund to help drought-hit farmers and villagers suffering crop losses and severe water shortages.

India is in the grip of its worst water crisis in years, with the government saying about 330 million people, or a quarter of the population, are suffering from drought after two weak monsoons.

Acting on a petition, the Supreme Court issued a slew of orders to the government including creating a national plan to tackle the crisis, a mitigation fund and standard procedures for declaring areas drought-hit.

Justice Madan B. Lokur also lashed out at the government over a lack of preparedness for the drought which has struck at least 10 states across the country.

"Evidently, anticipating a disaster such as a drought is not yet in the 'things to do' list of the Union of India and ad hoc measures and knee jerk reactions are the order of the day," Lokur said in a written judgement.

"We are also quite surprised that the National Disaster Mitigation Fund has not yet been set up even after 10 years of the enforcement of the DM (Disaster Management) Act," he also said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met recently with at least three state chief ministers over the drought, as the government comes under intense pressure to ease the crisis.

Rural Development Minister Birender Singh told parliament on Tuesday that millions in government funds have been released to drought-hit regions, as temperatures soar across the country in the summer months.

Industry body ASSOCHAM estimated on Wednesday the crisis would cost the economy $100 billion if it continued until the end of the year.

Poor rains have prompted extreme measures including water restrictions, armed guards at reservoirs and water trains sent to the worst-affected regions.

Farmer suicides are high and some have migrated to cities and towns to work as daily wage labourers to earn money. Villagers in remote areas are being forced to walk long distances to source drinking water as local wells dry up.

Officials have forecast an above-average monsoon this year, offering hope for the struggling agriculture sector that employs about 60 percent of the population.

Farmers across India rely on the monsoon -- a four-month rainy season which starts in June -- to cultivate crops.

© 2016 AFP