The video behind Brazil’s latest pop sensation, who has scored with her looks, aspirational songs, and a more bubblegum take on Rio’s ghetto sounds. by Dom Phillips She is powerful, she knows how to wobble all the rights bits when she dances, and she will make you drool with desire.(…)
Slutwalk vs. Pilgrims, and papal protests in Rio
By Dom Phillips Rio de Janeiro is a city with a strong libertarian and radical political tradition, that goes back to the dictatorship era. And though the numbers turning out to protests in recent weeks have come down drastically down, they continued before and during the Papal visit, as I covered in these two stories for(…)
Atlético take Libertadores – finally
With the Pope in Rio, 58,000 Galo fans asked God for help against Paraguay’s Olimpia. It seems he showed up. By Dom Phillips You had to feel sorry for the Atlético Mineiro fans, for so long the nearly men of the Brazilian championship. Just after midnight this Thursday morning, at the end of extra time, the club’s(…)
Popeweek 2013
In 2013, this is what it looks like when the Pope is about to pass by in front of crowds. Smartphones and cameras everywhere. It’s Popeweek here in Rio de Janeiro, and that has absolutely dominated news coverage. Since my main employer, the LA Times, is a newspaper in a Catholic-heavy city in a very(…)
Brazil economy – more bad news
So this is something almost no one would have predicted until recently. When I got to Brazil in 2010 the economy was on fire, growing at over 7% annually. We had a sharp slowdown in 2012, but had been waiting for a good comeback in 2013 and 2014. But these notes from Nomura’s Tony Volpon,(…)
FLIP 2013
Brazil’s annual literary festival is a clever, unfussy and efficient event, interspersed with moments of unpredictable intellectual drama. Dom Phillips shares some stories from FLIP 2013. by Dom Phillips Literary festivals, like soccer matches and movies, need big moments. This one came during a ‘table’ – or mesa, as roundtable debates at the Paraty International Literary Festival,(…)
Belo Horizonte, June 26 – Bizarre scene, blurry photos
I was at the Brazil-Uruguay game on Wednesday, which was surrounded by protests marked by an especially large amount of property destruction and clashes with police. I left the game, and walked past a line of Police Shock Troops (I was wearing a big Fifa press badge, so they let me) into a bizarre world.(…)
Brazil 2013 – a political Big Bang
Things that seemed impossible less than a month ago are now happening every day here in Brazil. In a political Big Bang of swirling movements, causes and new protagonists, a new Brazilian universe is taking shape. Above, protestors in front of Congress, Brasília. By Claire Rigby Thousands of column inches have already been written on(…)
Brazil protests – what is going on?
The situation in Brazil has changed radically since I wrote this a week ago. Most obviously, the protests are much bigger, perhaps around 200 times bigger. Importantly, many of the 5,000 people I was on the street with last Thursday no longer have much do with what we’re seeing on the streets, and the original(…)
Video part 4 – Rio de Janeiro
Dom Phillips has returned to Rio de Janeiro, and sent in this video of protests there last night. He says the group there was more diverse, less dominated by the upper middle class than the protests in São Paulo – in Rio it was “the povão – periferia, favela, middle class, everyone.”
