#ldp-supermajority

#ldp-supermajority

Brazilian far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, imprisoned for plotting a coup after he lost the country's last election, is receiving treatment in an intensive care unit after being hospitalised with bronchopneumonia. The DF Star hospital in Brasilia said in a statement on Saturday that the 70-year-old was in a stable condition despite being diagnosed with worsening kidney function.

Lawyers for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have asked the country's Supreme Court to approve visits from Darren Beattie, a far-right adviser for the administration of United States President Donald Trump. A court filing revealed on Tuesday showed that Bolsonaro's lawyers were seeking to arrange a meeting with Beattie next week, either on March 16 or 17, during normal visiting hours.

While anyone drawing up a list of potential Conservative defectors to Reform UK would have put Suella Braverman near the top, this is still a big moment. Braverman is a former Conservative home secretary, a big beast of recent Tory history. And her switch emphasises the momentum Reform are showing in draining the Conservative Party. She is the fourth sitting Tory MP to join the party since the last election, and the third this month. The week before last it was Robert Jenrick, a week ago it was Andrew Rosindell, now Braverman.

Meeting in campaign mode In Germany's political system, federal party conferences are key events for any party, serving as an opportunity for self-reassurance, attack or consolation. Even the choice of venue holds meaning: a show of campaigning and confidence. Elections are being held in host state Baden-Wurttemberg two weeks after the party conference. Before the end of September, four more of Germany's 16 states are set to hold elections. In two of the five states Berlin and Saxony-Anhalt the CDU holds the office of state premier.

The river won, the forest won, the memory of our ancestors won, said the campaigners in Santarem when it was clear their actions had forced the Brazilian government into a U-turn on plans to privatise one of the world's most beautiful waterways and expand its role as a soy canal.

The Senate approved the so-called labour modernization law on Friday with 42 votes in favour, 28 against and two abstentions, handing the libertarian president one of his most significant legislative wins. Milei's administration argues the changes will spur investment and create formal jobs, while labour unions contend they weaken worker protections.

The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), Germany's first political party, are struggling to muster their optimism in a year when five of Germany's 16 federal states are set to elect new parliaments. According to the latest opinion polls, the SPD could be voted out of power in two states that is has governed for decades. In two others, the SPD is polling in the single digits.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has accused his United States counterpart Donald Trump of wanting to create a new UN, days after the US president launched his new Board of Peace initiative in Switzerland. Instead of fixing the United Nations, what's happening? President Trump is proposing to create a new UN where only he is the owner, Lula said in a speech on Friday.

I want to tell the US President Donald Trump that we don't want a new Cold War. We don't want interference in any other country; we want all countries to be treated equally, Lula told a news conference at the end of his three-day trip to India on Sunday.

But what is legally possible could pose a serious political problem. Because, as the European Commission pointed out when remarking on the Parliament's negative vote, the legal formula used to process the ratification of this agreement is the same one used for an agreement reached with Chile that did not raise any questions inside the European Parliament. In other words, the outcome of this vote suggests that the opposition for legal concerns is motivated less by legal reasons than by political ones.

Earlier in the day, Democrats blocked a spending bill using a filibuster in order to force the Trump administration into negotiations over its violent deportation campaign in cities across the U.S. The raids have involved DHS agents - most notably from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) - terrorizing and abducting residents, with immigration agents killing two people in Minneapolis this month.

Marielle Franco, 38, was a city councillor in the city of Rio de Janeiro, just one year into her term. She was considered an up-and-coming member of the left-wing Socialism and Liberty Party. A Black woman from the favelas—Brazil's densely populated, low-income neighbourhoods—Franco was best known for campaigning for the rights of LGBTQ people, racial minorities and women.

I believe that if Maduro has to be trialled, he has to be trialled in his country, not trialled abroad, Lula said in an interview, emphasising that what matters now is to re-establish democracy in Venezuela. It has to be solved by the people of Venezuela, and not by foreign interference, said Lula, citing a history of US-backed dictatorships in Latin America, including Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.