Brazil: Suspended Brazilian president Rousseff vows to fight on

Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she would keep fighting impeachment charges and was confident she would be declared innocent, after the Senate voted on Thursday to put her on trial for breaking budgetary rules.

"I may have made mistakes but I did not commit any crime," a stern-faced Rousseff said, in an address before leaving the Planalto presidential palace flanked by dozens of supporters. She called the impeachment process "fraudulent" and "a coup."

The Brazilian Senate voted in favor of putting President Dilma Rousseff on trial for breaking budget laws by 55 votes to 22.

After being officially notified, Brazil's first woman president was suspended, ending 13 years of rule by the leftist Workers Party, and Vice President Michel Temer became acting president during her trial.

Outside Congress, where a metal fence was erected to keep apart rival protests, about 6,000 backers of impeachment had earlier chanted "Out with Dilma" while police used pepper spray to disperse gangs of Rousseff supporters, who hurled flares back. One person was arrested for inciting violence.

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Brazil to slash carbon emissions by 37% by 2025: Rousseff

In her UNGA address on Sunday, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff pledged to slash Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions by 37 per cent.

“The contribution of Brazil will be a reduction of 37% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Our ambition is to reach a reduction of 43% by 2030. The base year in both cases is 2005,” said Rousseff.

Outlining her vision for a global climate change agreement on Sunday, Rousseff stressed on the importance of a “common response”.

“Our obligations should be ambitious and consistent with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. The Paris Conference is a unique opportunity for us to shape a common response to the global challenge of climate change,” the President said.

Brazil’s “energy mix is among the cleanest in the world” she claimed while adding that Latin America’s biggest economy has “reduced deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by 82%”.

“Brazil is one of the few developing countries to commit to an absolute goal for emissions reduction. In spite of having one the world’s largest populations and GDPs our goals are just as ambitious, if not more so, than those set by developed countries,” Rousseff noted.

Read more: Brazil to slash carbon emissions by 37% by 2025: Rousseff | The BRICS Post

Brazil: Dilma Rousseff re-elected Brazilian president with small majority

Dilma Rousseff beats Aecio Neves

Left-leaning President Dilma Rousseff has been re-elected president of Brazil, after securing 51.45% of votes in a closely-fought election.

An official count showed her rival, centrist candidate Aecio Neves, taking 48.55% of the vote.

Both candidates made economic growth and lifting Brazilians out of poverty central to their election campaigns.

EU-Digest

Brazil Election 2014: President Dilma Rousseff Leads In Polls, Could Win Election Without Runof - by Alessandria Masif

Incumbent Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff led a new election poll with 40.6 percent of voter support Saturday, Reuters reported. Her main competitors Aecio Neves and Marina Silva are neck and neck with 24.0 percent and 21.4 percent, respectively.

Rousseff would require either more than 50 percent of the ballots cast or more votes than those given to all other candidates combined to win the election outright Sunday and avoid a runoff against the runner-up Oct. 26, Bloomberg News said.

Whether in the first round or the second round, Rousseff and her center-left Workers’ Party have been forecasted to win Brazil’s presidential election by Citibank analysts in the country who recently revised their prediction, according to Reuters. “We now see the incumbent president, Dilma Rousseff, being re-elected with 67 percent of chances,” they wrote in a note to clients.

In previous polling, Silva had been favored to win, but her numbers have declined in the last month. Meanwhile, Neves’ numbers have remained steady. As the incumbent’s competitors are even in the polls, statistically speaking, it is  unclear who she might face in the event of a runoff.

Although still struggling, Brazil’s economy has improved by some measures since Rousseff won the presidency. Unemployment has reached an all-time low, the minimum wage has increased and a program allowing thousands of doctors to migrate to Brazil from Cuba has been implemented, as BBC News reported.

Read more: Brazil Election 2014: President Dilma Rousseff Leads In Polls, Could Win Election Without Runoff

Brazil's president, angry about spying, cancels state visit to U.S.- by Kathleen Hennessey and Vincent Bevins

In the latest fallout from the Edward Snowden affair, the president of Brazil canceled a state visit to Washington out of anger that the National Security Agency had spied on her and other Brazilian officials, deepening a rift with the Obama administration.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday called off the high-profile visit that both governments had planned for Oct. 23. A White House spokesman sought to downplay the diplomatic snub by a key ally and trading partner, and described the decision to indefinitely postpone the visit as mutual.

The White House said in a statement that Rousseff and President Obama had agreed that the state visit — an elaborate affair with meetings and a formal dinner with toasts — would be better staged when relations between the two nations were less tense.

Obama "understands and regrets" the concern that disclosures about U.S. spying has generated in Brazil, the statement said. "He is committed to working together with President Rousseff and her government in diplomatic channels to move beyond this issue as a source of tension in our bilateral relationship."

A statement from the Brazilian president's office was harsher, citing a "lack of ... explanations and commitment to cease interceptive activities" for the cancellation.

Read more: Brazil's president, angry about spying, cancels state visit to U.S. - latimes.com

Dilma Rousseff Elected Brazil's President

A former Marxist guerrilla who was tortured and imprisoned during Brazil's long dictatorship was elected Sunday as the first female president of Latin America's biggest nation, a country in the midst of a rapid economic and political rise.

A statement from the Supreme Electoral Court, which oversees elections, said governing party candidate Dilma Rousseff won the election.

With nearly all ballots counted, Rousseff had 56 percent of the vote compared to just under 44 percent for her centrist rival, Jose Serra, the electoral court said. In a 25-minute victory speech to jubilant supporters in Brasilia, Rousseff said that her first promise was to "honor the women" of Brazil and that she hoped her win would allow "fathers and mothers to look their daughters in the eyes and say, 'Yes, a woman can.'"

Note EU-Digest: Among the 195 nations recognized by the UN, and following the election of  Dilma Rousseff in Brazil (but not counting royalty), there are only 25 elected female heads-of -state amongst the leaders of the world. That is a poor average, but a step in the right direction.

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