International
Brazil town aspires to be champion of Bolsonaro vote
| By AFP | Anna Pelegri |
On Holy Christ Avenue, in front of Bible Square, Brazilian businessman Gilberto Klais buoyantly hops out of an SUV decorated with a giant decal of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
Smiling in a denim shirt, the 39-year-old head of the local business owners’ association is a man on a mission: “On election day, the town of Nova Santa Rosa will cast more votes for Bolsonaro than anywhere else in Brazil,” he says.
The small town in the southern state of Parana already voted massively for the incumbent in Brazil’s first-round election on October 2, casting 82 percent of its ballots for Bolsonaro — the second-highest percentage in the country.
Now, as the president heads for a runoff Sunday against veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro backers are pushing for an even bigger win.
But this small community of trim little houses surrounded by endless expanses of soy and corn fields has some tough competition, in one of Brazil’s most conservative regions.
The neighboring towns of Quatro Pontes and Mercedes finished third and fifth in the Bolsonaro love fest, voting 80 percent and 78 percent for the former army captain, respectively.
And the town of Nova Padua, in neighboring Rio Grande do Sul state, cast the highest percentage for him with 84 percent.
“Bolsonaro lit our flame for Brazil,” says Klais, who owns a local bakery.
Visitors don’t have to look far for proof: a sea of yellow-and-green Brazilian flags hangs from buildings — a symbol Bolsonaro has adopted as his own — and his smiling face beams from campaign posters all over town.
Opponents’ criticisms of the president — Brazil’s 687 000 deaths from Covid-19, increasing hunger, destruction of the Amazon rainforest — are mute here.
Finding a Lula campaign sign is an impossible task.
Farming is king in these parts, and Bolsonaro, a close ally of Brazil’s powerful agribusiness sector, “has given us security to invest,” promotes “a strong economy,” and upholds God and family “as the supreme good,” says Klais.
“He’s just like us.”
Battle for Brazil’s soul
On his father’s farm, where a feed truck has been turned into a makeshift billboard with Bolsonaro’s slogan — “Brazil above everything, God above everyone” — Ricardo Lorenzatto is on a mission, too: convince at least 200 of the 800 residents who voted for Lula to switch sides in the runoff.
Bolsonaro “promised to visit the city that casts the highest percentage of votes for him,” says the 35-year-old agricultural engineer, his blue eyes alight.
“My heart leaps just thinking about it.”
He is active on WhatsApp message groups rallying the faithful for pro-Bolsonaro events, such as an Independence Day motorcade on September 7, which, he proudly boasts, stretched four kilometers (2.5 miles).
Lorenzatto says ex-president Lula (2003-2010), who the far-right labels a “communist,” is a threat to his children’s future.
If Lula wins, “indigenous tribes could invade our land, force us to share our cattle,” he says.
Holding her one-year-old grandson on her porch, Clarice Radoll agrees.
“I would feel very insecure if Lula won,” says the 60-year-old Evangelical Christian, who has Bolsonaro’s picture proudly displayed on the front of her house.
In this town of a dozen churches and around 6,000 inhabitants, Radoll repeats a line often used by conservative pastors: that Lula represents “moral perversion.”
“It’s every Brazilian mother and father’s fear,” she says.
Agribusiness hero
In Mercedes, just up the road, farmer Andre Fiedler admits Lula’s government also took care of the agribusiness industry during the economic boom of the 2 000s.
“I don’t want to be a hypocrite,” he says.
But Bolsonaro’s administration has backed farming and agricultural exports like no other, “opening new markets for our products,” he says.
He brushes off international criticism over surging Amazon deforestation under Bolsonaro, which experts say is driven by agriculture.
“People say Bolsonaro is damaging Brazil’s image overseas… but that’s just a trade game — protectionism by France, Germany, the United States,” Fiedler says.
“Who’s the biggest soy producer in the world? The biggest poultry exporter? Brazil,” he says.
“There are vested interests trying to hold us back.”
Bolsonaro, who took 43 percent of the vote in the first round to 48 percent for Lula, trails his leftist rival heading into the runoff — but by a narrowing margin, according to opinion polls.
International
Mexico Arrests CJNG Leader “El Jardinero” in Nayarit
Mexican authorities arrested Audias Flores, known as “El Jardinero,” on Monday during a naval operation in the western state of Nayarit, delivering another major blow to the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG).
Flores was considered one of the top regional leaders within the cartel and had reportedly overseen criminal operations along Mexico’s Pacific coast. Security analysts viewed him as a potential successor to slain drug kingpin Nemesio Oseguera.
The arrest was carried out by Mexico’s Navy Special Forces in a planned operation, according to Security Minister Omar García Harfuch.
The United States Department of the Treasury had previously identified Flores as a “significant foreign narcotics trafficker,” while U.S. authorities offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his capture and extradition.
A U.S. grand jury indicted Flores in 2021 on charges including conspiracy to distribute cocaine and heroin.
His capture comes months after the reported death of “El Mencho,” an operation that Mexican authorities considered a priority due to the cartel leader’s alleged involvement in a 2020 assassination attempt against García Harfuch.
International
Suspect Armed With Shotgun and Knives Detained at White House Correspondents Dinner
U.S. authorities confirmed Saturday that the suspect who stormed into the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner while President Donald Trump was attending acted alone, adding that there is no ongoing threat to the public following the incident, which left one Secret Service agent injured.
Acting Metropolitan Police Department chief Jeff Carroll said during a press conference that the suspect was carrying “a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives” when he attempted to pass through a Secret Service security checkpoint inside the hotel lobby at approximately 8:36 p.m. local time.
“At this point, everything indicates that this was a lone actor, a lone gunman,” Carroll stated, adding that investigators have found no preliminary evidence suggesting the involvement of additional suspects.
During the exchange of gunfire inside the hotel corridors, the suspect was not struck by bullets but was subdued by law enforcement officers and later transported to a hospital for medical evaluation.
A member of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division was shot during the incident, though the bullet was stopped by the officer’s ballistic vest, preventing serious injuries. The agent was taken to a hospital and is reportedly “in good spirits,” according to Carroll.
The shooting prompted the immediate evacuation of President Trump, Melania Trump, and several senior officials attending the event after multiple gunshots were heard outside the hotel’s main ballroom.
International
U.S. allows Venezuela to fund Maduro and Cilia Flores’ legal defense
Until now, the U.S. administration had blocked the Venezuelan government from covering the legal fees of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who is also jailed and facing drug trafficking charges, due to international sanctions imposed on Venezuela.
The couple’s legal team had relied on that argument in an attempt to have the indictment dismissed, claiming that preventing a defendant from accessing counsel of their choice violates rights guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
However, the U.S. Treasury Department will now allow “defense attorneys to receive payments from the Government of Venezuela under certain conditions,” New York prosecutor Jay Clayton wrote in a letter dated Friday to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing the case.
According to the letter, the funds must have become available after March 5, 2026, and cannot come from Venezuelan oil sales regulated in the United States.
Since Maduro’s removal from power in early January, former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has served as Venezuela’s interim leader.
The United States effectively controls Venezuelan crude exports, with revenues deposited into special accounts supervised by Washington.
Court documents filed on Friday show that the defense acknowledged the sanctions exemption and, for now, withdrew its motion seeking dismissal of the charges.
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