Taking office in January, Mr. Bolsonaro’s government set about systematically dismantling all state agencies that enforce environmental protection and indigenous rights, empowering illegal ranchers, loggers and miners. (That’s not just my opinion; the French economist Thomas Piketty, among others, thinks so too.) And Mr. Bolsonaro’s third son, Eduardo, was nearly appointed ambassador to the United States; his only credentials were having flipped burgers as an exchange student in Maine, and having visited Colorado once. Mr. Bolsonaro’s own chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, admitted he pocketed slush funds from a company in 2014. The confession never led to an investigation; the justice minister Sérgio Moro explained that Mr. Lorenzoni had already acknowledged his past errors and apologized.

Source: International New York Times December 26, 2019 10:52 UTC