Brazil

SAO PAULO, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's Supreme Court Judge Luis Roberto Barroso issued an injunction on Saturday suspending the Foreign Ministry's move to expel 34 Venezuelan diplomats.

According to the injunction, Barroso gave the government 10 days to explain why it set May 2 as the deadline for the diplomats' departure.

Brazil withdrew its diplomats from Venezuela's capital city Caracas on April 17, Reuters reported on Saturday.

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 2 (NNN-Xinhua) — The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro opened on Friday its second field hospital to serve patients infected with COVID-19, as the pandemic has put a strain on the city’s public hospital network.

It is the largest field hospital of the nine planned to be installed in the city, with facilities occupying 13,000 square meters at the Riocentro convention center. The new field hospital has 500 hospital beds, including 100 in the intensive care unit (ICU) and 15 for the hemodialysis unit.

BRASILIA, May 1 (NNN-Xinhua) — Brazil registered 7,218 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health reported, showing that the pandemic contagion curve in the country has accelerated in recent days.

According to data on the country’s official COVID-19 platform, confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus rose from 78,162 on Wednesday to 85,380 on Thursday, an increase of 9 percent.

The death toll rose from 5,466 to 5,901, with a fatality rate of 6.9 percent. In the last 24 hours, 435 new deaths were registered, compared to 449 in the previous day.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 29 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – The Brazilian government announced the appointment of Andre Mendonca, as the country’s new minister of justice and public security, and Alexandre Ramagem, as the new head of the Federal Police.

The announcement was made in Tuesday’s edition of the Official Journal, which publishes all government decrees.

Mendonca previously served as Attorney General, a position he held since the beginning of the Bolsonaro administration. In addition to his legal career, Mendonca is also an ordained Presbyterian minister.

28 April 2020; AFP: A Brazilian supreme court judge on Monday ordered a probe into accusations by former justice and security minister Sergio Moro that President Jair Bolsonaro sought to "interfere" with police investigations.

In his decision, obtained by AFP, Judge Celso de Mello gave the federal police 60 days to question Moro about his explosive allegations against the right-wing president.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has appointed André Mendonça as the new Justice Minister, replacing Sergio Moro who resigned last Friday after accusing his boss of wrongdoing, according to the official gazette on Tuesday.

Mendonça, 47, previously served as Brazil’s attorney general and was once considered for a nomination to the Brazilian Supreme Court.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil is emerging as potentially the next big hot spot for the coronavirus amid President Jair Bolsonaro’s insistence that it is just a “little flu” and that there is no need for the sharp restrictions that have slowed the infection’s spread in Europe and the U.S.

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's Minister of Justice and Public Security Sergio Moro resigned from office on Friday, accusing President Jair Bolsonaro of trying to interfere in Federal Police investigations.

On Thursday, local media G1 reported that President Bolsonaro had called for the dismissal of the head of the Federal Police, Mauricio Valeixo. Moro reportedly said he would not fire Valeixo without good reason and threatened to quit. The government on Friday morning announced Valeixo's dismissal, and Moro subsequently announced his resignation.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Cases of the new coronavirus are overwhelming hospitals, morgues and cemeteries across Brazil as Latin America’s largest nation veers closer to becoming one of the world’s pandemic hot spots.

Medical officials in Rio de Janeiro and at least four other major cities have warned that their hospital systems are on the verge of collapse, or already too overwhelmed to take any more patients.

MONTEVIDEO, April 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The number of coronavirus infections across Latin America surpassed 100,000 on Sunday with nearly 5,000 deaths, according to official figures reported by individual countries.

Brazil, with a population of 210 million, has the most cases — 38,654 infections and 2,462 deaths — although experts believe the number of infections to be far greater, given relatively little testing.

Based on official figures, Latin America as a whole had 100,952 cases on Sunday, with 4,924 deaths.