Leaked chats appear to show judge advised prosecutors in Lula case

[ad_1]

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Leaked personal messages published on Saturday by a news website show the judge who led the corruption trial that jailed former Brazil president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva advised prosecutors to influence public opinion against the leftist leader.

FILE PHOTO: Brazil's Justice Minister Sergio Moro speaks during a session of the Public Security commission at the National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil May 8, 2019. REUTERS/Adriano Machado/File Photo

The Intercept posted what it said were social media chats from then judge Sergio Moro to the prosecution team, suggesting prosecutors make a public statement playing up what Moro said were contradictions in Lula’s testimony to undermine his claim to be a victim of political persecution.

The exchange occurred after Lula’s May 10, 2017 deposition against charges that he took a beachside luxury apartment as a bribe. Lula left the court room to tell supporters that he was being “massacred” and was preparing to run for president again.

Moro, who is now Brazil’s justice minister, questioned the authenticity of the messages and said he would not comment on texts obtained by hackers.

“The supposed material, obtained in a criminal way, must be presented to an independent authority so that its integrity can be certified,” he said in a statement.

The texts copied off the Telegram messaging app appear to show Moro suggesting to prosecutors that they mount a public campaign against the man he was judging, and The Intercept said they raised doubts about Moro’s impartiality in the trial that led to a 12-year prison sentence for Lula.

“Maybe tomorrow you should write a statement clarifying the contradictions between (Lula’s) deposition and the rest of the proof and his previous statement,” the judge wrote to prosecutor Carlos dos Santos Lima on the corruption investigation.

Lula’s lawyers have long argued that Moro was a politically motivated judge who wanted to jail their client to block him from running for the presidency last year, when opinion polls showed him easily leading the race, even after he had been jailed.

In an interview published on Friday, Moro told the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper that he was not worried that the corruption conviction against Lula would be overturned, which legal experts including the Brazilian Bar Association and some Supreme Court Justices have said could happen.

The Intercept has published stories based on what it said was an “enormous trove” of messages received from an anonymous source containing exchanges between prosecutors, Moro and others involved in the investigation and prosecution of the “Car Wash” corruption probe.

Considered the world’s largest graft investigation, it has uncovered billions of dollars of bribes paid in schemes mostly involving sweetheart contracts at state-run firms. It has brought down hundreds of members of the business and political elite in Brazil and across Latin America.

Moro told the newspaper he did not think there was anything illegal in his chats with prosecutors and insisted that Lula’s case “was decided with absolute impartiality based on proof without any type of influence.”

Moro was picked for justice minister by right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who won the presidency after Lula was barred from running because of his conviction.

Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Daniel Wallis

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

One trapped miner in Chile rescued, one dead, one remains missing

[ad_1]

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chilean authorities found alive one of three Bolivian miners trapped beneath the rubble at a small copper mine early on Saturday, while another was found dead, Chile´s mining ministry said.

Authorities have yet to locate the third miner. The three men had gone missing late Thursday after a small landslide blocked the entrance to the mine, trapping the miners nearly 70 meters (230 feet) beneath the surface.

“Our rescue teams found one of the miners in good physical condition, and he has been transferred to the hospital,” mining minister Baldo Prokurica said in a statement on Saturday. “We will continue to look for the third person that has not been found.”

The mining ministry said authorities had worked for nearly 40 hours at the Directorio 8 mine near Tocopilla on the northern Chilean coast before locating two of the three men.

Chile is the world’s top copper producer, and mining accidents, while uncommon, are closely followed by the Chilean public and politicians.

In 2010, a mining accident in Copiapo, northern Chile, led to 33 miners being trapped underground for nearly 10 weeks before being rescued, an event that made world headlines.

Reporting by Dave Sherwood, Editing by Franklin Paul

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

Venezuelans rush to Peru border ahead of migration crackdown

[ad_1]

TUMBES, Peru (Reuters) - Thousands of Venezuelans rushed to Peru’s northern border on Friday in hopes of entering the Andean country before it imposes tough immigration requirements at midnight, as one of the hitherto most welcoming destinations for the migrants in South America closes another door to them.

Venezuela’s economic collapse under President Nicolas Maduro has unleashed the biggest migratory crisis in recent Latin American history, forcing countries like Peru - a developing nation of 32 million people - to grapple with an unprecedented surge in immigration.

Children dominated the crowds of tired migrants who arrived at the Peruvian border town of Tumbes from Ecuador on Friday, ahead of the June 15 deadline for all Venezuelan migrants to have valid visas and passports.

On Thursday alone, 5,849 Venezuelans entered Peru at Tumbes, compared to a daily average of around 1,500-2,000 in recent months, Peru’s immigration office said on Friday.

“It was awful!” said Rosmaura, a 25-year-old Venezuelan migrant who said she had traveled for a week from the eastern Venezuelan city of Maracaibo to reach Tumbes with her two children. She declined to give her second name.

Rosmaura was afraid that after June 15 Peru would not let her 5-year-old daughter in because she lacks a passport, which she said costs $200-$500 to acquire in Venezuela - an impossible fee for most people in a country where the monthly minimum wage equates to just $6.

She said she hopes to make it to Chile.

“Most of my family is there,” she said.

Four million Venezuelans - more than a tenth of the population - have fled the economic and humanitarian crisis in their homeland, the United Nations said last week.

Peru is home to some 800,000, the government says - the second-largest Venezuelan migrant population outside Colombia, which houses more than 1.2 million.

Just two years ago, Peru had introduced new migratory laws to accommodate Venezuelan migrants. It doled out hundreds of thousands of special residency cards so they could work legally, go to school and access public health care.

But the tide has since turned, amid growing fears fanned by media reports and politicians that Venezuelan migrants are driving down wages and fuelling crime.

Slideshow (17 Images)

Peru cut short its special residency program and started deporting Venezuelans with criminal records. The government has said it would require migrants to secure a visa from its consulates in Venezuela before going to the border - a policy similar to one implemented by neighboring Chile.

As migrants took buses, hitchhiked and trekked their way to Peru’s border on Thursday, President Martin Vizcarra defended his new immigration stance from an event in the northern city of Piura.

“Our country has opened its arms to more than 800,000 Venezuelans. I think it’s completely logical and justified to ask them to bring visas to ensure better control of who enters,” Vizcarra told journalists.

Reporting by Guadalupe Pardo and Reuters TV, Writing By Mitra Taj; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Rosalba O'Brien

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

Mexico, Honduras say will work together to protect migrant rights

[ad_1]

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico and Honduras will coordinate to protect the rights of Honduran migrants in transit through Mexico as well as strengthen their cooperation to tackle human trafficking, their foreign ministries said in a joint statement on Friday.

Officials from both countries met in Mexico City to discuss migration and development “under the principle of shared responsibility,” the statement said.

Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon, Editing by Dan Flynn

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

U.S. sending more asylum seekers back to Mexico via Texas border crossing: official

[ad_1]

Cuban migrants return to Mexico from the United States to await their court hearing for asylum seekers as part of the legal proceedings under a new policy established by the U.S. government, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico June 14, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Thursday began ramping up the pace of returns of asylum seekers to Mexico to wait out their U.S. court hearings by sending around 200 migrants back through the El Paso, Texas, port of entry, according to a Mexican official.

The increase from around 100 migrants a day is the first sign of expansion of a Trump administration policy known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, said Luis Carlos Cano, a spokesman for Mexico’s national immigration agency in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso. The program began in January and was meant to expand as part of a deal to stave off tariffs on Mexican goods.

Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso, Texas; Editing by Leslie Adler

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

Brazil markets spooked by minister's complaints on pension reform

[ad_1]

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil’s economy minister and lower house speaker exchanged harsh words on Friday over progress on pension reform, creating another drag on Brazilian financial assets already feeling the heat from global market weakness.

Brazil's Economy Minister Paulo Guedes attends a news conference in Brasilia, Brazil June 12, 2019. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

Economy Minister Paulo Guedes kicked off the spat, spurning a congressional committee report for what he called excessive changes to the government’s pension reform bill such as scrapping a plan to launch private savings accounts.

Rodrigo Maia, speaker of the lower house of Congress, hit back at the criticism, saying the collective will had prevailed as it should in a democracy. “We’re not going to pay attention to Minister Paulo Guedes and his recent aggressions against the parliament,” Maia said in a TV interview.

The complaints from Guedes, coming a day after President Jair Bolsonaro’s chief of staff had touted the congressional pension reform report as a “huge victory,” raised concerns about more tension between the government and Congress.

After clashes with lawmakers in recent months, Guedes had struck a more conciliatory tone, contributing to investors’ hopes for a swift approval of the landmark reform to boost public finances. But his disdain on Friday was striking.

Speaking in Rio de Janeiro, Guedes said only a bill generating around 1 trillion reais ($256 billion) of savings over the next decade would represent real reform of the country’s bloated social security system, but around 860 billion meant the issue would need revisiting in five or six years time.

On Thursday, the special committee on pension reform’s long-awaited report recommended changes to the original draft, reducing the government’s planned 1.237 trillion reais of savings to 913 billion reais.

Analysts expect that to be watered down further, but the consensus still appears to be that anything above 800 billion reais would be regarded as a major stepping stone toward putting the country on a more stable financial footing.

Brazilian markets rallied on Thursday, but the political noise soured the taste on Friday, and Guedes came under fire.

“He said what everyone thought, but he shouldn’t have said it,” said a fund manager in Sao Paulo who was not authorized to speak with the press.

The real fell around 1.2% to 3.90 per dollar, its worst day since the end of April, and the benchmark Bovespa stock market fell 0.74%.

Guedes criticized the committee’s report for excluding a transition to private savings accounts, reforms of state and municipal government pensions and changes to how older, disabled and rural workers are treated.

Maia said the special committee will vote on the bill around June 25-26, then present it to the plenary for final lower house approval before a congressional recess in late July.

Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier and Maria Carolina Marcello; Writing by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Will Dunham

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

Brazil's Minerva suspends furlough at beef plant as China ban ends

[ad_1]

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian meat processor Minerva SA said on Thursday it has suspended a furlough announced last week for its Barretos beef processing facility, following news that a ban to exports to China has ended.

Brazil’s government said on Thursday it has lifted a suspension of beef exports to China after dealing with an atypical case of mad cow disease.

Reporting by Gabriela Mello and Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Phil Berlowitz

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

Brazil lifts suspension of beef exports to China

[ad_1]

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil’s government said on Thursday it has lifted a suspension of beef exports to China after dealing with an atypical case of mad cow disease, sending shares of Marfrig Global Foods, Minerva SA and other Brazilian meatpackers soaring.

The suspension had been in effect since June 3 after a case was reported in a 17-year-old cow in the state of Mato Grosso. Cases can arise spontaneously in cattle herds, usually in animals 8 years old or older.

Tereza Cristina Dias, the agriculture minister, said on her Twitter account that Brazil would resume issuance of international health certificates to allow for beef exports to China.

Marfrig, whose shares jumped 5% after the announcement of the end of the suspension, said in a securities filing that the government’s issuance of these certificates had been normalized on Thursday.

Shares of rival Minerva also rose 3% in São Paulo.

China is the only country among Brazilian importers that enforces a health protocol requiring suspension of beef imports when an atypical case of mad cow disease is reported, Brazil’s agriculture ministry said in a statement.

The ministry reiterated the Brazilian government’s intention to negotiate a new health protocol with Chinese authorities to address the issue.

Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Dan Grebler and Paul Simao

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link