Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The leaders of all three branches of Brazil’s armed forces jointly resigned Tuesday following President Jair Bolsonaro’s replacement of the defense minister, causing widespread apprehension of a military shakeup to serve the president’s political interests.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil currently accounts for one-quarter of the entire world’s daily COVID-19 deaths, far more than any other single nation, and health experts are warning that the nation is on the verge of even greater calamity.

The nation’s seven-day average of 2,400 deaths stands to reach to 3,000 within weeks, six experts told the Associated Press. That’s nearly the worst level seen by the U.S., though Brazil has two-thirds its population. Spikes of daily deaths could soon hit 4,000; on Friday there were 3,650.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil topped 300,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, becoming the second country to do so amid a spike in infections that has seen the South American country report record death tolls in recent days.

The United States reached the grim milestone on Dec. 14, but has a larger population than Brazil.

On Wednesday, Brazil’s health ministry reported 2,009 daily COVID-19 deaths, bringing its pandemic total to 300,685. On Tuesday, the country saw a single-day record of 3,251 deaths.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil reported more than 3,000 COVID-19 deaths in a single day for the first time Tuesday amid calls for the government and the new health minister to take action to stem the nation’s resurgence of coronavirus infections.

In recent weeks, Latin America’s largest country has become the pandemic’s global epicenter, with more deaths from the virus each day than in any other nation. Tuesday’s record toll of 3,251 deaths was driven by the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous, which recorded 1,021 new deaths, far above the previous high of 713 last July.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Protesters against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro defied police in the capital Friday, a day after the latest round of arrests of the leader’s critics under a dictatorship-era national security law.

Four demonstrators were detained Thursday after calling Bolsonaro “genocidal” for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and displaying a cartoon depicting the president as a Nazi. But on Friday, police quietly watched an hour-long protest against Bolsonaro staged by about 40 people.

CAVALCANTE, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s vast size and deficient infrastructure make getting coronavirus vaccines to far-flung communities of Indigenous peoples and descendants of slaves a particularly daunting endeavor.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden wrote to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro last month, outlining opportunities to work together on the pandemic and the environment ahead of the United Nations COP26 climate conference, the Brazilian president’s office said on Thursday.

In the Feb. 26 letter, which was confirmed by a U.S. official, Biden said his government is willing to work closely with Brazil on a new chapter in bilateral relations, adding that there were no limits on what the nations could achieve together, according to the Brazilian president’s office.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday picked his fourth health minister since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, amid the worst throes of the disease in the country yet and after a series of errors decried by public health experts.

Marcelo Queiroga, the president of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology, will replace Eduardo Pazuello, an active-duty army general with expertise in logistics who landed the position last May despite having no prior health experience.

RIO DE JANEIRO, March 13. /TASS/: Brazil has passed India to claim the world’s second-highest coronavirus case tally after the United States. As many as 85,663 cases were recorded in Brazil in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 11,363,380, according to the Health Ministry.

The number of coronavirus fatalities rose by 2,216 to 275,105 in the past day. Brazil has the second-highest coronavirus death toll after the US.

Over ten mln patients have recovered in Brazil, there are currently more than one mln active coronavirus cases in the country.

BRASILIA, March 13 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Brazil’s lower house of Congress approved the basic text of a bill that revives a federal cash transfer program to help millions of poor families whose incomes have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The measure will allow emergency stipends totaling up to 44 billion reais (US$ $7.96 billion) to be paid to low-income Brazilians over the next four months, with recipients expected to get an average of 250 reais per month.