India News

What Coronavirus? Brazil’s Cabinet Video Has Obscenities, Insults But No Mention of Pandemic That Killed 22k

Published

4 years ago

May 24, 2020

On April 22, Brazil was fast becoming a new coronavirus flashpoint, but President Jair Bolsonaro and his cabinet barely mentioned the pandemic in a video-taped meeting that has triggered outrage and fueled a potentially explosive investigation.

Indeed, one of the few mentions of COVID-19 in the video — released Friday as part of a probe into whether the far-right president obstructed justice by firing the federal police chief — was when the environment minister said the government should take advantage of the distraction created by the pandemic to relax the country’s environmental protection rules.

Littered with obscenities, insults, tirades and potentially incriminating statements, the video triggered outcry in Brazil, where many questioned the government’s policy-making amid a pandemic that has killed more than 22,000 people in the country.

“It’s two hours full of swear words and delirium, derision and disrespect for the country. Brazil is going through its worst crisis in decades, and the president never mentions the pandemic as a problem that concerns him,” wrote respected columnist Miriam Leitao in newspaper Globo.

“The absence is shocking.”

The video’s existence emerged when popular justice minister Sergio Moro resigned two days after the meeting, accusing Bolsonaro of inappropriate “political interference” in the federal police.

Police are reportedly investigating multiple cases involving Bolsonaro and his inner circle, including allegations his son Carlos, a Rio de Janeiro city councilor, oversaw a fake-news campaign to benefit his father.

In the video, Bolsonaro rails against the federal police for failing to give him information and says, “I’m not going to wait for them to fuck my family and friends.”

Bolsonaro denies trying to stifle investigations, and said the video proved the accusations against him were a “farce.”

Analysts generally agreed the video, which was released by Supreme Court Justice Celso de Mello, did not contain a “smoking gun” to incriminate the president.

However, other material contained in the nearly unredacted footage could prove just as damaging to Bolsonaro, who faces growing disapproval ratings 18 months into his four-year term.

Bolsonaro called two state governors a “piece of shit” and “pile of manure” for defying him by imposing coronavirus stay-at-home measures.

His education minister called for the Supreme Court justices to be thrown in jail for giving states the final say in the matter.

His women’s minister said governors and mayors should be arrested, too.w

Turning to diplomacy, his economy minister called China “that guy you just have to put up with” because it is Brazil’s biggest export destination.

Brazilian media counted 39 swear words in all, including 31 by the president, and there was widespread condemnation from commentators, opposition parties and civil society groups of the meeting’s tone.

“It showed the vulgarity of the current government. They are like barbarians throwing the country into chaos, disrespecting the law and ignoring the constitution,” Congressional opposition parties said in a joint statement.

The meeting showed a government made for the “post-truth era,” said political analyst Geraldo Monteiro of Rio de Janeiro State University.

“The Bolsonaro government wasn’t made to govern. It’s a militant government that’s here to implement a conservative agenda, not run the country,” he said.

The meeting may be most damning for what it does not contain.

The cabinet did not have a single policy discussion on how to handle coronavirus in Brazil, which now has the second-most infections in the world, behind the United States.

The administration showed “total disregard for COVID-19 deaths and the agony of their respective families,” said veteran political analyst David Fleischer.”The only minister to mention COVID-19 was the environment minister.”

And that mention generated a firestorm of controversy.

Environment Minister Ricardo Salles says in the video, “Now that the media’s only talking about COVID, we need to use this moment of calm… to change all the regulations.”

That was widely taken as a call to open protected land in the Amazon rainforest to mining and agriculture — something Bolsonaro has aggressively pushed — though Salles said Saturday he meant only that the government should try to cut red tape.

Environmental protection advocates were not buying that argument.

“It became clear that the role of the environment ministry is to dismantle any environmental protection we have in the country,” said Erika Berenguer, an Amazon ecologist at Oxford and Lancaster Universities, who joined groups such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund in condemning Salles’ comments.

https://pubstack.nw18.com/pubsync/fallback/api/videos/recommended?source=n18english&channels=5d95e6c378c2f2492e2148a2&categories=5d95e6d7340a9e4981b2e10a&query=What,Covid-19?,Brazil,Cabinet,Video,Has,Insults,,Obscenities,But,No,Mention,of,Virus,That,Killed,22k,coronavirus,Jair,Bolsonaro,&publish_min=2021-05-22T18:38:47.000Z&publish_max=2021-05-24T18:38:47.000Z&sort_by=date-relevance&order_by=0&limit=2

(Note: This is a Article Automatically Generated Through Syndication, Here is The Original Source

Related Topics:Coronavirus COVID-19 Jair Bolsonaro pandemic

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India News

Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha Election Phase 2 : Key seats, candidates in the fray

Published

23 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Manoj Nair

Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha Election Phase 2 : Key seats, candidates in the fray

The massive electoral exercise of the Lok Sabha Elections for 2024 is in full swing and the second phase of the election has commenced. In the second phase the fate of the candidates of 89 constituencies spread across 13 states will be decided by the voters. Uttar Pradesh is the most important state with more than 80 Lok Sabha seats. In the second phase of the election voters will vote for eight Lok Sabha seats.

Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha seats which will go for the polls include Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Amroha, Meerut, Aligarh, Bulandshahar, Mathura, and Baghpat. Amroha, Meerut, Baghpat, and Gautam Buddh Nagar will see a triangular contest between NDA bloc, the Opposition INDIA alliance, and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Mathura and Ghaziabad will see a straight contest between BJP and Congress. In Aligarh and Bulandshahr the BJP will lock horns with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party.

The Details are as follows-

Amroh -Kanwar Singh Tanwar(BJP) ,Danish Ali (Congress).Mujahid Hussain(BSP)
Meerut – Arun Govil (BJP),Sunita Verma Pradhan (Samajwadi Party),Mujahid Hussain(BSP)
Mathura-Hema Malini (BJP),Mukesh Dhangar (Congress) —
Baghpat-Rajkumar Sangwan (RLD),Amarpal Sharma (Samajwadi Party),Praveen Bansal(BSP)
Aligarh-Satish Kumar Gautam (BJP),Bijendra Singh (Samajwadi Party) —
Ghaziabad-Atul Garg (BJP) ,Dolly Sharma (Congress) —
Budh Nagar-Dr Mahesh Sharma (BJP),Mahendra Nagar (Samajwadi Party),R.S.Solanki(BSP)
Bulandshahar-Bhola Singh (BJP),Shivram Valmiki (Samajwadi Party) —

Many prominent personalities will find their fate locked in the EVM machines and this includes Hema Malini who will be eying for her third win from Mathura. She is pitted against Mukesh Dhangar from the Congress party.

Another star Arun Govil is standing from the BJP from Meerut and he is pitted against Sunita Verma from the SP and Devvrat Tyagi from the BSP. Arun Govil had played the character of Lord Rama in the Ranananda Sagar 1987 serial Ramayan

MP Kunwar Danish Ali has changed party and is now standing as a Congress candidate Amroha, a constituency historically without a strong allegiance to any particular party. He stood and won as a BSP candidate in 2019. He will be pitted against Kanwar Singh Tanwar of the BJP and Mujahid Hussain of the BSP.

As per reports in the first four hours a voter turnout of 24.31 per cent was recorded in the eight parliamentary constituencies of Uttar Pradesh in phase two of the Lok Sabha elections on Friday. The polling began at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm.

Viral

Video of Isha Arora, Saharanpur Polling Agent Takes the Internet By Storm

Published

7 days ago

April 20, 2024

Priyadarshi Shastri

Video of Isha Arora, Saharanpur Polling Agent taking the internet by storm

A video is currently going viral on the internet, showing Saharanpur polling agent Isha Arora doing the rounds in the Gangoh assembly constituency during the Saharanpur Lok Sabha elections. Since then, netizens have been going gaga over her charm and personality.

Meanwhile, many are curious to know more about her. A wide range of memes and reels are also being shared on Twitter and Instagram.

According to social media, Isha Arora is a State Bank of India (SBI) employee, currently employed on polling duty for the Saharanpur Lok Sabha Election 2024 in Madari village of the Gangoh assembly constituency.

#WATCH | Saharanpur, UP: Polling Agent Isha Arora says, "I think that if you get any duty, you should be punctual and that's the reason I have assumed my duty on time. Every man and woman should be punctual to let the functioning be smooth."

Regarding her video going viral, she… pic.twitter.com/Xo44vVeYyQ— ANI (@ANI) April 19, 2024

Video of Isha Arora dominates the internet

There she serves as the first polling officer at Garhi village’s polling booth. It got to a point that national news agencies were trying to get her on camera.

Images of UP polling officer #IshaArora are widely circulating on various social media platforms. Her pictures, captured by media cameras in #Saharanpur with necessary election materials, have caught the public's eye.#viral #viralvideo pic.twitter.com/IqW3EQuuWz— Madhuri Adnal (@madhuriadnal) April 19, 2024

Many of Isha Arora’s photos and videos are circulating on various social media platforms, generating millions of clicks and views. While talking to ANI, she stated:

“I think that if you get any duty, you should be punctual and that’s the reason I have assumed my duty on time. Every man and woman should be punctual to let the functioning be smooth.”

On being asked about her election duties, she said:

“I’ll say that people should be punctual and they are, otherwise conducting such big elections wouldn’t have been possible. I didn’t get time to watch it (comments) in the video. It’s election time and it was my duty to come on time hence I was busy. It goes viral due to my punctuality and devotion…”

Back in 2019, during the Lok Sabha elections, a clerk from the Public Works Department in Lucknow, Reena Dwivedi, gained national media attention because of her beauty. Her pictures in a yellow saree on duty went viral on various social media platforms.

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India News

Raj Kundra ED Case Explained: Properties Worth Rs 98 Cr Seized

Published

7 days ago

April 20, 2024

Subhashree Panda

Raj Kundra ED Case Explained: Properties Worth Rs 98 Cr Seized

Raj Kundra, the famous businessman and husband of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, has had properties worth Rs. 98 crore seized by the Enforcement Directorate.

The ED has also seized Shilpa Shetty’s Juhu flat. The Mumbai Zonal Office has seized movable and immovable properties worth Rs. 97.79 crore belonging to Raj Kundra (also known as Ripu Sudan Kundra) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, as reported by The Economic Times.

The seized properties include equity shares in Raj Kundra’s name, a residential bungalow situated in Pune, and a flat in Juhu under Shilpa Shetty’s name.

The investigation was initiated by the ED based on multiple FIRs registered by the Delhi Police and Maharashtra Police.

The FIRs were registered against several MLM agents: Mahender Bhardwaj, Simpy Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, the late Amit Bhardwaj, and M/s Variable Tech Pte Ltd.

ED, Mumbai has provisionally attached immovable and movable properties worth Rs. 97.79 Crore belonging to Ripu Sudan Kundra aka Raj Kundra under the provisions of PMLA, 2002. The attached properties include Residential flat situated in Juhu presently in the name of Smt. Shilpa…— ED (@dir_ed) April 18, 2024

According to News18, allegations prevail that they collected funds worth Rs. 6,600 crore in 2017 in the form of Bitcoins. Moreover, they falsely promised a 10 percent return per month in the form of Bitcoins.

Investors were led to believe they would get higher returns on crypto assets, and the Bitcoins were purportedly taken to be used for Bitcoin mining in Ukraine. However, the promoters cheated the investors.

The promoters concealed the “ill-gotten Bitcoins in obscure online wallets.”

Investigation on Raj Kundra and Other Suspects

The ED investigation into Raj Kundra revealed that he received 285 Bitcoins from Amit Bhardwaj, the mastermind.

As the deal didn’t materialize, Raj Kundra still possesses 285 Bitcoins, worth Rs. 150 crore at present value, as per Mint.

In this case, Nikhil Mahajan was apprehended on January 1, 2023, Nitin Gaur on December 29, 2023, and Simpy Bhardwaj on December 17, 2023. Currently, all three of them are in judicial custody.

However, the masterminds, Mahendra Bhardwaj and Ajay Bhardwaj, are yet to be caught.

Further investigation in the case is under progress.

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