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World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

Leprosy in Brazil: uncovering a hidden disease – video

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 01:00 AM PST

To mark world leprosy day on Sunday, campaigners and patients discuss how Brazil's network of colonies have excluded people with the disease and hampered efforts to raise awareness

Sundance 2014: Whiplash wins jury and audience awards

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:58 AM PST

Drama starring JK Simmons as a sports-coach style drum teacher follows last year's Fruitvale Station in taking both audience and jury prizes

• Read the Guardian's review of Whiplash

The dramatic story of a drummer who pursues excellence at all costs won top honors at the Sundance film festival.

Whiplash collected both audience and jury prizes for American dramatic films at the festival's awards ceremony.

The musical drama by writer-director Damien Chazelle opened the independent film showcase last week and rode a wave of positive buzz throughout the 10-day event.

Chazelle made his Sundance debut last year with a short version of Whiplash intended to gain financial support for the feature-length film. The feature stars 26-year-old Miles Teller as an aspiring jazz drummer and veteran actor JK Simmons as his unforgiving instructor.

Chazelle thanked his actors "who really made this movie work". The 28-year-old filmmaker drew on his personal experiences as a member of a high school jazz band as inspiration for the film.

The documentary Rich Hill, a coming-of-age story about the inhabitants of a tiny town in Missouri, won the jury award for U.S. documentary. The American documentary about music's healing effects on dementia, Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory, won the audience award.

Actors Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally hosted the ceremony at the Basin Recreation Fieldhouse in Park City, Utah.

The 30th Sundance film festival finishes on Sunday 26 January.

• Xan Brooks's Sundance 2014 roundup


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From Russia With Love recap: men's men and women with killer boots

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:44 AM PST

This Sunday afternoon at 12.45pm, ITV1 screens the second James Bond film – which perfectly captured Fleming's incorrigible spy, and brought us the unforgettable Rosa Klebb

Reading on mobile? Watch the trailer here

"Oh James, James, will you make love to me all the time in England?" - Tatiana

After a period of being tucked away on Sky, the James Bond films are back where they're supposed to be – filling up huge swathes of the ITV weekend schedule until it's time to show all the Harry Potter films in order again. This is undoubtedly a good thing. James Bond is as much a part of ITV as Ant and Dec and those upsettingly sexually aggressive e-cigarette adverts. So, to welcome him back, here's a recap of 007's second cinematic outing, From Russia With Love.

From Russia With Love is over 50 years old now, and it stands a perfect document of James Bond as he was meant to be, before prevailing fads of the times made him too jokey or too gadgety or too politically correct or deliberately not politically correct enough. It's set in the time it was written, when M was a man and Bond wasn't sporadically distracted by John Cleese honking around like a ninny. It's one of the best films in the series, and I'll kick anyone who disagrees with me in the leg with a spike.

"Red wine with fish. Well that should have told me something" - James Bond

In retrospect, there's a case for calling From Russia With Love the first real James Bond film. Dr No might have introduced the character, but it was just as interested in Brylcreemed young service operatives in nice cardigans as it was with anything else. From Russia With Love, though, struck upon all the old tropes that we still see to this day; a pre-title sequence (with that old chestnut, the dead Bond fakeout), gratuitously hammy titles that are approximately 98% boob, the introduction of Q and the promise that "James Bond will return".

Excluding the very start of the film, where he leaps out at you like a toddler with a waterpistol; and the initial lookalike, we don't even meet James Bond until almost 20 minutes in. And, having laid out the building blocks of his chief characteristics in Dr No, the set-up to his introduction here is minimal. It's just him with his belly button out, getting off with a girl in a boat. Which is, more or less, how he ends the film. It's a different girl, though. What a cad.

Despite all this indiscriminate swordsmanship, the film also contains the first signs that James Bond might actually be a human being. When discussing his plans to seduce Tatiana with M, he makes a couple of asides about whether he'll be handsome or charismatic enough to manage it. It's a nice moment, allowing Bond to be vulnerable without physically making him weep in the shower fully clothed like he does now. And let's not forget, his heart is officially too soft to be a Gypsy. On the other hand, this is the film that birthed Bond's immortally icky pick-up line: "[Your mouth] is just the right size … for me, that is." He might be vulnerable, but he's still a complete bastard.

"One day we must invent a faster-working venom" - Blofeld

After the relative disappointment of Dr No who, despite being the titular character of the previous film, pretty much just recounted an evil plan and then fell into a cooling vat, this time we get a spectacular array of villains. This is where we first meet Blofeld – although here he's credited as "?" – and then there's Red Grant who, despite his role in the film's most unbearably tense scene, looks too identical to Daniel Craig to be a real menace. In my head at least, Grant is a future version of James Bond sent back to the past to kill Sean Connery before he can go on to commit the crimes of racial insensitivity demonstrated in You Only Live Twice.

But the real baddie of From Russia With Love, the real draw, is Colonel Rosa Klebb. The woman is a force of nature. Her poison-coated shoe-spike is one of the all-time most iconic Bond weapons. She flinches at unsolicited human contact, as all sensible people do. And, on top of all that, she travels all the way to SPECTRE Island and back just so that she can punch one solitary man in the stomach. Klebb is so mighty that the film went to some lengths to dilute her impact – the book originally ends with Klebb kicking Bond almost to the point of death. She's brittle and brutal and permanently looks ill at ease in her own skin. My ideal woman, in short.

Observations

• I'll be dipping in and out of the James Bond films as ITV airs them over the next six months or so. Full disclosure: I'm only doing this because it means I'll get to write about On Her Majesty's Secret Service in a few weeks. Expect much gushing.

• Another undying 007 trope set out by From Russia With Love: grown men walking around with their tummies sucked in. Thanks Red Grant!

• Today in Things Were Different In The Past: James Bond calls a woman "mental".

• Moneypenny's seduction technique: rubbing her face against someone like a cat trying to clear out its sinuses. No wonder it never works. Moneypenny is an idiot.

• It's interesting to see Desmond Llewelyn as a pre-eyeroll Q. In fact, his scene is incredibly dry here, like watching an Open University operating exploding suitcases programme.

• At least this film proves that there's one thing James Bond is terrible at: throwing film into the sea and then waving at it.

• See our past poll on the best 007s

• The James Bond recaps will (probably) return.


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First World War: Still No End in Sight by Frank Furedi – review

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:30 AM PST

Frank Furedi's libertarian ideas about the way we should view the first world war are missing the point

The centenary of the first world war, "the war to end all wars", with its terrible tally of 16 million dead and 20 million wounded, and its contentious origins and outcomes, has recently seen renewed wrestling in the comfortable trenches of the commentariat. A motley crew that includes Michael Gove, the education secretary; Tristram Hunt, historian and Gove's shadow; comedian David Mitchell; Jeremy Paxman and refugees from Blackadder have been exercising their opinions about the causes and meaning of the four-year debacle that ended in nations paralysed by grief and no lasting peace, only a postponement of hostilities. As Marshal Foch remarked of the Treaty of Versailles, "This… is an armistice for 20 years."

Sociologist Frank Furedi in First World War: Still No End in Sight is not focused on whether Britain fought a just war in defence of democracy and liberalism (main ally tsarist Russia? 40% of the British troops yet to have the vote?) or the merits or demerits of patriotism and the officer class sending Tommies "over the top" to certain death. Instead, he warns that there is a danger in treating the past mainly as a lamp to illuminate the present. Modern wars such as the global "war on terror" (recently renamed the "overseas contingency operation" by the American administration, adopting managerialism in a vain attempt to distract from the rising death count) and the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan are viewed by many today as incomprehensible and unpopular, influenced by "contemporary attitudes of cynicism, apathy and mistrust of any cause or belief", Furedi writes. (Tell that to the young men and women leaving Britain to take up arms in Syria.) As a result, there is a concerted effort to pin the same label of incomprehensibility on 1914-18.

That is misguided, Furedi argues. The public showed "remarkable" support for the conflict at the outbreak of war, "because they believed that it would provide them with a cause that had true meaning" (and employment and food in the belly without much harm done – or so 15-year-old volunteers thought). "Many young people believed that this was a cause worth fighting and potentially even dying for."

What Furedi contests with brio, unlimited pessimism and references to an army of intellectuals that span the century, is that the first world war has never ended. It heralded the death rattle of empire, deference, white racial superiority and the docility of the masses. It fostered a fear of populism (rising again today) and, as the late Tony Judt reminds us in Ill Fares the Land, the first world war was followed by epidemics, revolutions, the failure of states, currency collapses, unemployment, dictatorship and fascism. Democracy, however, has proved resilient if battered.

Those seismic shifts, Furedi is not the first to argue, have influenced the way we think about our cultural and political life; our values or lack of them; our national identity and the draining away of trust in our institutions and notions of authority. "After the bitter experience of a century of conflicts," Furedi writes, "tackling the question of how to ensure that popular consent serves as the foundation for authority remains the question of our time."

Furedi's broad, stimulating and ambitious canvas is framed by his own politics. Self-described as a libertarian, he has roots in the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and is now a prominent figure in the Institute of Ideas (IoI). Furedi is prolific. Many of his books reflect the IoI's contrarian and anti-"problem-mongering" position. His books, built on convincing grains of truth, include Paranoid Parenting (too much of it), Therapy Culture (too much of it) and Politics of Fear (too much of it). Essentially the message is that the ordinary man and woman are becoming fearful, risk-averse, infantilised, bossed about by self-appointed experts at a cost to democracy, science and reason.

In Still No End in Sight, however, it is not problem-mongering that is the target for trenchant criticism but "the culture wars", lifestyle choices that delineate a traditionalists-versus-progressives civil war on "hot-button" issues such as abortion, homosexuality and marriage. Culture wars, he argues, have filled the vacuum created by the demise of ideologies and the exhaustion of left and right.

What Furedi terms "lifestyle" issues, however, may also personify an individual's politics; the personal is political. The values of a radical Islamist and how he may or may not gel with the values of an emancipated feminist secularist, both of whom are part of British citizenry, neither of whom may wish to trade off personal convictions, is not a concern about "segmented lifestyles" but part of a dynamic that – along with reshaping capitalism so that the social compact is infinitely fairer – are among the major issues of our democratic times. Yet Furedi concludes that we have to "consign cultural and lifestyle issues to the margins" and "re-politicise the ideal of democracy and public life" or risk violent conflict and war. That, surely, is as surreal as taking the bullets out of a gun and still squeezing the trigger to fire?

Yvonne Roberts

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Australia Day: beers, barbecues and bull-riding as thousands celebrate

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:27 AM PST

Nearly 18,000 people sworn in as citizens as traditional pursuits mix with the new all over the country









Australia Day around the country - as it happened

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:17 AM PST

Commemorations and celebrations around the country marked Australia Day for 2014, including almost 18,000 people becoming Australian citizens in more than 400 ceremonies and the Australia Day honours list recognising people who have had an impact on the lives of others. 

Helen Davidson

Voices of Brazil: the ex-striker and World Cup ambassador

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:01 AM PST

'Like all Brazilians, the mood is supportive and vibrant,' says Ronaldo, aka the 'Heir to Pelé', about hosting the World Cup

"Heir to Pelé" is a title that any footballer would surely cherish, but while there have been many contenders in Brazil, there is probably only one currently playing the game as profitably off as on the pitch.

Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima – better known as Ronaldo – is not only following the King of Brazilian football in his goal-scoring exploits but in the way he became part of its marketing establishment.

Nicknamed "O Fenómeno" (The Phenomenon), the ex-striker enters 2014 as a World Cup ambassador and brand-building businessman whose three-year-old company has more at stake than most in a successful tournament. Since playing his last game for Corinthians in 2011, he has focused on sports marketing agency 9ine, in which he has a 45% stake. The company reportedly has close ties to the powerful Globo media group and has signed deals with Duracell and GlaxoSmithKline.

This investment has come at a cost. During the mass protests during the Confederations Cup last year, Ronaldo Рalong with Pel̩ Рremained among the most vocal cheerleaders of the tournament.

True to his role as ambassador of the World Cup, he expresses confidence about the hosting of the tournament. "I feel as good about it as is possible. Like all Brazilians, the mood is supportive and vibrant."

But he is clearly not blind to his country's shortcomings. Asked about the future, his hopes echo many of the demands of the protesters. "Quality of life without social distinctions; education, health and safety for all; political transparency and ethics that do justice to the natural beauty and energy of the people."

First, though, O Fenômeno's mission appears to be putting the feelgood factor back into the beautiful game – and perhaps earning a buck or two in the process.


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Voices of Brazil: the writer who likes to shock

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:01 AM PST

'What [my characters] say is morally dubious and drenched in sex, drugs and gaming,' says Reinaldo Moraes, whose novel Pornopopéia exploded onto the Brazilian literary scene

You may not like the person talking in your ear. You may not want to listen to what they have to say – which is by turns shocking, morally dubious, drenched in heavily sexual content, illegal drugs, or gaming, or worse. But you will keep reading.

The novels of Brazilian writer Reinaldo Moraes specialise in first-person narratives from characters like these, who do not waste time on morals, guilt or reprobation.

"It is very liberating to create this type of character," the 64-year-old says from his home in São Paulo. "The character functions with this logic. It is curious. It is almost a scientific experiment."

Moraes's novel Pornopop̩ia exploded on to the Brazilian literary scene in 2009, like a Ṣo Paulo Trainspotting Рribald, hilarious and disturbing. Critics loved its heady mix of high and low culture and the way it riffs on the rhythms and melody of its language, like a jazz musician.

"It is a linguistic kick, a little mania, I am very attentive to the sound of words," Moraes says.

The book is narrated by failing 42-year-old filmmaker Zé Carlos, who, instead of writing an overdue script for stuffed chicken snacks, goes on a drugs-and-sex bender, sweeping the reader along with him as he careers from one misadventure to another. These include an orgy in a Buddhist centre. "I wrote that orgy as if it was a battle on the field of Troy," he says. "I had a lot of fun with this."

Moraes, who grew up in a lower middle-class family, was inspired by the hedonistic lifestyle he and other writers and film-makers enjoyed in Ṣo Paulo in the 1980s and 90s. "There was a lot of permissive behaviour Рimmediate sex, inconsequential sex, cocaine and alcohol; it was part of a menu we consumed," he says. But he insists the book is not biographical. Incidentally, his first book, Tanto Faz (It Doesn't Matter, published 1981), featured a Brazilian economist who embraces hedonism while studying in Paris. Moraes was a Brazilian economist, on an exchange course at the Sorbonne when he wrote it.

Z̩ Carlos is, on one level, a monster Рan out-of-control, cocaine- and sex-addicted hedonist Рbut he is also hilarious and engaging. He is a malandro, a quintessentially Brazilian male character, a charming rake who sees the world as his sexual playground and does not let moral considerations get in his way. "This is very Brazilian, this figure of the malandro," Moraes admits. "It is sort of monstrous."

There is a sense in which malandro behaviour also influences the corruption that Moraes says is endemic in Brazilian business and society – in everything from the bidding process for stadium construction to failing public services like health and education.

"This idea that you take what you can. The idea that the state is the pirate's treasure, and when you get to it, you can have a party," he says.

Moraes focuses his disillusionment on the Workers' Party, Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT, the left-wing party which swept former union leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to power in 2002, but then embraced a more market-friendly agenda. Particularly the mensalão vote-buying scandal, which first broke in 2005, but which only recently finally saw leading political figures imprisoned. "I always voted for the PT, it was always the party of the left," he says. "They matured and went rotten. They are totally corrupt."

A tantalising chapter for his next book, A Travessia de Suez (The Suez Crossing), published recently in intellectual Brazilian weekly Piauí, featured another malandro – the spirit of the deceased moneyman from a lucrative, illegal gaming operation, joking that he could be God.

But Moraes has already decided to jettison the chapter. Instead, before the book comes out in 2015, he will publish Maior Que O Mundo (Bigger Than The World), both a film script and a novel about a blocked writer. "It is a curious process. I am enjoying the dialogue a lot."

Moraes does not like football and he is against next year's World Cup, which he predicts will prompt more street protests, like those that swept Brazil in June. "I think it is abominable, this idea to do this cup, to make stadiums that will become ruins afterwards," he said. "At some point the scandals will start popping up."

Dom Phillips

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Voices of Brazil: the DJ and star of funk carioca

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:01 AM PST

'Funk is democratic and that's why it's dangerous,' says Leonardo Pereira Motta

Leonardo Pereira Motta grew up in poverty in Rocinha, one of the largest favelas in Latin America. As a teenager he found his voice through the emerging music phenomenon of the slums – funk carioca. With the moniker MC Leonardo he became one of its first stars. "We are underground and that's our strongest weapon," he says. "Funk is democratic and that's why it is dangerous. We upset the market, because it is we who compose, we who produce, we who distribute, we who buy and we who sell. The kid in the favela will only rap what he is seeing."

MC Leonardo is less of a godfather and more of a guerreiro, or warrior, of funk. A conscious lyricist and militant political activist, two years ago he stood as candidate for councillor in Rio. "I am only afraid to continue living in fear," he says. By chance I run into him at one of the regular mass protests in the centre of the city, just another voice in the crowd, but a fired-up ball of urgent energy. Brazil today, he says, "doesn't live in a democracy". But he is hopeful about the immediate future.

"The organisations inside all of the favelas have been co-opted or sold out or don't exist. But I believe it is possible to change things, without burning tyres, without throwing stones, without shooting anybody, it's possible to make change. All it needs is people to take to the streets and say what they want, but they have to be organised and mobilised and fight in the right way. It doesn't matter if you are performing in front of a million people or one person, you still have to sing it like it is."


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Voices of Brazil: ninja journalist Bruno Torturra, who runs an alternative press collective

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:01 AM PST

'I want the people of the world to hear a different narrative from the World Cup; from a point of view of people on the street, not the stadiums or the press,' says Bruno Torturra, leader of the Mídia Ninja collective of citizen journalists

It is hard to imagine anyone who looks less like a Japanese assassin, but Bruno Torturra is a leader of the self-styled Mídia Ninja collective, which emerged as an alternative to the mainstream Brazilian press during the protests last summer.

The group arrived as a loose collective of citizen journalists who, spurred by advances in digital media that put the powers of reporting and distribution in their hands, reported and live-streamed hours of footage from protests in different cities.

Armed with smartphones and digital cameras, they were determined to tell what they saw as the true narrative of news that was being distorted. They quickly grew in popularity with those similarly disenchanted and frustrated with the coverage of the protests by traditional media, while polarising opinion among established commentators. And they hit the national headlines when they filmed a police infiltrator throwing a Molotov cocktail at a protest during Pope Francis's trip to Brazil in July 2013.

The first seeds of Mídia Ninja were sown in 2012 when Torturra, then a journalist for Trip magazine, wrote a piece on the music and social collective Fora Do Eixo (FDE). Members live in shared casas, with their own alternative economy. "I found them fascinating," says Torturra, when we meet in his local café in São Paulo. "I thought it was brilliant to see so many young people living together and putting into practice their ambition for a utopian cultural economic system."

A few months later Torturra was covering a march to legalise marijuana. "The police really cracked down on the protesters. I was beaten and inhaled tear gas," he says. "I wrote a huge article on my blog and the next morning everyone was sharing it on Facebook."

The blog got a bigger reception than anything Torturra had written in nine years at Trip. Pablo Capilé from Fora Do Eixo called Torturra and suggested they talk about working together. With other FDE members Rafael Vilela and Felipe Altenfelder they began streaming events under the name Post TV, building an increasing following until last summer, when Torturra wrote a more defined manifesto and they became Mídia Ninja.

At the height of the protests they had several thousand independent citizen journalists. The extent to which they polarised opinion was clear when they were invited on to a Brazilian talk show and Torturra and Capilé were given a grilling from an invited panel of established journalists, and to many came out on top.

Torturra is aware that there's a huge appetite around the world to find out more about the complex situation in Brazil, which will only be heightened in the next 12 months. "We have huge potential for this year," he says. "It is the year of Brazil. Even we don't know exactly what is happening right now. The World Cup is a horrible idea. I think the government now realises that, but it's too late to stop it. The cost is so huge. It's proven to be a lie that the World Cup brings better infrastructure and leaves a legacy. The only legacy is more expensive stadiums and a lot of public money gone to the toilet.

"We're in a really good position to cover it in a different way, not only for Brazil but the world," he says. "I'm planning to make Mídia Ninja a stream in English and Spanish as well, so people of the world can hear a different narrative from the World Cup; from a point of view of people on the street, not the stadiums or the press. We're not interested in the football. That will be over-covered by other people."

Luke Bainbridge

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Voices of Brazil: the police chief pioneer

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:01 AM PST

'I am happy with the part I've played in pacification,' says Major Pricilla de Oliveira Azevedo, a key player in the world's most ambitious policing operation

When the world's most ambitious policing operation was shaken last year by reports that officers tortured and killed a resident in Rio de Janeiro's biggest favela, the authorities knew exactly who to call.

Major Pricilla de Oliveira Azevedo – a 35-year-old pioneer of Rio's "pacification" programme – was appointed to handle the political fall-out from the arrest of her predecessor and 12 other officers, who were charged with the murder of Amarildo de Souza, a bricklayer who was last seen at police headquarters being interrogated with electric shocks and asphyxiation.

That case sparked mass protests and threatened to undermine Rio's five-year strategy to regain control of more than 40 favela complexes that had previously been run by armed gangs. But tension has been eased by the arrests and de Oliveira's appointment as chief of police in Rocinha, a community of mostly poor, non-white residents overlooking some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Brazil.

Major Pricilla – as she is best known – is the friendly, positive face of the pacification programme that she has helped to spearhead. She is in charge of hundreds of officers in one of the most violent police forces on the planet and is playing a prominent role in trying to shift perceptions of their tole.

Veja Magazine named her Defender of the City. The US State Department gave her an "outstanding leadership and courage" award.

In her five months in Rocinha, she has had to deal with murders, drug trafficking, gun running and frequent nightly shoot-outs between residents and police, not to mention the day-to-day task of liaising with community representatives.

We meet on a day of relative calm in Rocinha at the make-shift police headquarters – a Lego-like structure of shipping containers high up by the forest line. The major is delayed by a long discussion with a man with a mohican who wants to organise a festival. For the infectiously positive de Oliveira such interactions are a sign of progress.

"Places like Rocinha used to be isolated, but now they have merged with the wider community. That has brought in big changes," she says as we sit between two of the concrete benefits – a new public toilet and football pitch. "There is still crime as there is everywhere, but it has changed. The number of murders has gone down enormously."

Although she was brought up in the middle-class Rio neighbourhood of Laranjeiras, de Oliveira has first-hand experience of the terror felt by victims of crime. In 2007 she was robbed, tied up and taken to a favela. "That was the most frightening moment of my life. I was completely alone," she recalls. But it also proved to be a turning point. De Oliveira escaped, then returned to arrest her captors, bursting in on them with a gun. "I guess that doesn't happen much in your country," she laughs.

Her career has since followed a meteoric rise. In 2008, de Oliveira was put in charge of the first pacification operation in the Santa Marta favela, which proceeded peacefully and opened the path for social services and public investment.

Rio de Janeiro's favelas, which are home to more than a fifth of the city's 6.3 million people, are a symbol of Brazil's acute inequality, murderous crime and stark social divisions. Although pacification targets only 40 of the city's 600 favelas, the operation is fraught with logistical, physical and political challenges.

"Without a doubt, this is the most ambitious policing project in the world," de Oliveira says. "We have moved into areas that were long abandoned by public institutions. Because the state didn't take care of these communities, crime took over. The point of our programme is to return responsibility to the authorities."

As the Amarildo case showed, it is far from smooth sailing. As well as occasional killings by and of police, there have been complaints that the authorities have stopped backing the initial force with long-term funds. De Oliveira acknowledges room for improvement. "The politicians could be doing more to accelerate development. They should be bringing in social services as the same speed as UPP units as they did in Santa Marta."

After impressive initial gains, there were signs last year that crime was once again starting to rise. Keeping on top of a fast-changing situation in a community of 67,000 residents takes its toll.

"There are lots of problems that require attention. Last night I finished at 10pm and was then called back in at 1am. I've been here since," says De Oliveira during our later afternoon interview. "I'm exhausted but I love it. I'm very happy with the part I've played."

Fitting in a personal life is difficult. Her boyfriend calls and while they chat, I'm drawn for the first time by her bright pink nail polish rather than the three stars on her shoulder. "I can't tell him that I was called to come to work at 1am or he'll never want to marry me," she says with a smile after they hang up. "Police life is very complicated."

Relentlessly upbeat about the future, however, she says the coming year will see new steps forward for the pacification programme. "My hope for 2014 is more peace," she says. "As for my fears, well, I am aware of the difficulties of the pacification programme, but I have a very positive view. I can't say I'm afraid of anything."

Additional reporting by Anna Kaiser

Jonathan Watts

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Voices of Brazil: the tycoon building his own Garden of Eden

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:01 AM PST

'The next step is to build villages,' says Bernardo Paz, whose country-park-cum-open-air-art-complex, Inhotim, is home to 5,000 plants species and an impressive art collection

A remarkable country-park-cum-open-air-art-complex set among the mining-scarred hills around Belo Horizonte, Inhotim is home not only to 5,000 plant species, but also to an impressive art collection. Two works in particular reflect the surrounding landscape: Olafur Eliasson's Viewing Machine, a giant kaleidoscope, and Doug Aitken's Sonic Pavilion, a glass dome rigged with microphones and speakers to fill the space with the sound of the earth breathing.

Inhotim is the brainchild of Bernardo Paz, a 60-something mining tycoon who had something of an epiphany while recovering from a stroke in 1995. According to him, Inhotim is neither simply a park nor merely an art gallery. It is "a way of life."

Now married to his sixth wife, Paz has the air of a gently ageing rock star. The world belongs to the rich and powerful, he tells me, and much of what is wrong today can be traced back to European colonisation. Brazil was blessed and cursed, he says, by its tropical climate and natural riches such as sugar, gold and rubber, which encouraged exploitation from abroad and also led to indolence. A languid climate combined with natural bounties, he reasons, discourages industriousness.

"Half our visitors are from underprivileged communities. So you can see the very rich walking alongside the poor. Everybody respects each other and helps each other, because they're surrounded by something bigger – nature and beauty. Beauty transforms people. Can you imagine having a fight at Inhotim? It would be impossible. Even the most stressed individual leaves here feeling as innocent as a child."

Paz plans to build a theatre, hotels and a convention centre. "Artists will come here to work," he says. "An artist cannot create his dream in a big city or a museum. I have space here for permanent exhibitions by a thousand artists. The next step is to build villages where people can live, from the rich to the poor. Everybody will work online. That is the future – break up the big cities and turn them into villages."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is no room for the World Cup, at least in its present form, in Paz's Garden of Eden. "The World Cup only exists to benefit the big cities," he says. "They build new roads and trains to get to the stadium. But why would you spend the entire day struck in traffic to watch 90 minutes of football? I wouldn't. I'm not crazy. You only need 10,000 people in the stadium to create an atmosphere. The players know there are billions watching on TV or via the internet."

I ask him what the World Cup means to Inhotim. "The World Cup won't make any difference to Inhotim," he says, lighting another cigarette. "Inhotim is forever."

There are no plans to attract visiting fans to the park. "World Cup or no World Cup," he says, "they will come."


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Voices of Brazil: the health worker who believes in the power of protest

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:01 AM PST

'Politicians receive so much money. If I could change one thing it would be to reduce their salaries,' says health worker Ines Ferreira de Abril

Inês Ferreira de Abril's position in the community where she lives and works is halfway between guru and local hero. Walking through the tight red-brick maze of the Borel-Indiana favela, a poor settlement of some 20,000 just a 10-minute cab ride from Rio's Maracanã stadium, she is stopped every five minutes by well-wishers and those seeking advice.

These exchanges highlight some shocking failures of Rio's public health system: the head of a local residents' association whose young son died from an undiagnosed cancer; an elderly woman who has waited three years for a rheumatologist appointment; a diabetic who pays for her insulin when the local Posto de Saude Рthe government-run health clinic where In̻s is based Рruns out. According to In̻s, these situations are commonplace. "It takes so long to arrange specialist care," she says. "People end up spending their hard-earned money on private appointments and buying medicine they should get for free."

Inês grew up in Borel-Indiana and was drawn to working in the public health system 12 years ago when she found out she was pregnant with her third child. She earns R$850 (£250) a month working at the Posto de Saude from 8am to 5pm, Monday through Friday.

"Living in the community, in reality, we work 24 hours a day. People always need help – they knock on our doors in the middle of the night, ask questions at the bus stop. Therefore the low salary is a problem," she says, sitting in the home she's been in since she was five. A laptop and a copy of the Bible lie on the glass living-room table. "The politicians receive so much money. If I could change one thing in Brazil, it would be to reduce their salaries. I wish I could change the corruption, too."

Inês took part in a few of the popular protests that started in Rio in June 2013. The last was October's teachers' protest that called for better salaries, working conditions and improved career prospects. She says public education and healthcare are "unvalued" services. "If things are bad, you have to go to the street and show the government your discontent. The street is the place for protest," she says. "But I don't believe in vandalism. When you're breaking traffic signs, bus stops, it's public money we have paid."

When asked about the famed Black Bloc Рthe masked anti-capitalist anarchists inspired by their European counterparts of the same name who hijacked the teachers' protest РIn̻s sighs and shakes her head. "That's what the government does Рhides behind masks. We need to show our faces, to show who we are and our dissatisfaction."

Inês hopes the protests will lead to health professionals being valued so they are less likely to switch to the lucrative private healthcare sector. She says doctors come to the Posto de Saude at Borel-Indiana, gain experience and then leave, often after only a year or so, which is disruptive. "They prefer to work in the private system because there are better working conditions and better pay. They have everything they need: equipment, medicine, research."

Along with higher salaries, Inês believes public health workers need facilitated career paths as well as incentives and help to study further. "An informed person can complain, shout and inconvenience the government. An uninformed person can't," she says. "A healthy, informed Brazil is a better Brazil."


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Voices of Brazil: the spiritual medium

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:00 AM PST

'The country has woken up to its responsibilities and people are slowly winning their rights as citizens,' says Divaldo Franco, Brazil's most popular spiritual medium

Eighty-six years old and looking not a shade over 60, Divaldo Franco is Brazil's most important spiritual medium, selling more than 10m books worldwide. His home is in the middle of one of Brazil's most violent favelas, Pau da Lima, on the outskirts of Salvador. But Franco's world is serene and peaceful.

It's set inside the physical embodiment of his life's work, the Manṣo do Caminho Рan institution which provides housing, education and care for children and young people. Where once stood a giant rubbish dump the Manṣo is a vast, ultra-modern community complex. The building is regarded as untouchable by the drug traffickers as many of them, or their families, use its services.

Hundreds of mothers drop their kids off every day at the free crèche. More than 30,000 children are estimated to have passed through the Mansão over the past 60 years. A large part is financed by the sale of Franco's books. He claims to channel spirits and transcribe their words in a method known as "psychography".

It all came about because of a vision he had in 1948, aged 21. "I saw a huge number of children and an old man," he recalls. "I went up to the elderly man. He turned around and I realised it was me in old age. And a voice said to me: 'This is what you will do with your life.'"

He was later introduced to the doctrine of spiritism, coined by the French writer Allan Kardec in 1857, which believes in the existence of, and communication with, spirits through mediums. "Spiritism is growing in Brazil because it attends to the cultural, emotional and spiritual needs of society," he says.

Over the years, Franco has adopted more than 600 abandoned children, many of whom now have their own children and grandchildren, and Franco sees hope in that youngest generation.

"We are living through a remarkable moment," he says. "The country has woken up to its responsibilities and the people are slowly winning their rights as citizens and moving towards democratic freedoms and social justice. The country has consciously prepared for 2014, when the whole world will be following the football, to show that the nation has higher values, above those of carnival or even football, and that it is a strong nation that is ready to take on the here and now."

Despite his age, the diminutive Franco still packs his own suitcase and travels the world alone, as he has done for decades, delivering hundreds of lectures.

"These trips open doors for those who will come in the future," he says. "My message is of love, of hope, of caring. To say to people that our lives have a meaning and that we are not on the Earth to suffer.'"


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Voices of Brazil: the tribal activist fighting for his Amazon home

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:00 AM PST

'There are about 40 indigenous villages in the Kayapó – an area the size of England,' Tribesman Bep Torim tells Gibby Zobel

Gazing down from the light aircraft as we fly into the Amazon we can just pick out an aldeia, or indigenous village, as a round dot in a vast expanse of unbroken rainforest. This is the land of the Kayapó, a warrior-like people, and there are 40 of these aldeias in a protected area almost the size of England.

Stretching 11m hectares from Pará to Mato Grosso in the centre-west, this territory has been hard won by the people of the forest.

"The first contact with the white man was the time of my grandfather," says tribesman Bep Torim. "My grandfather and my father managed to win this struggle and demarcate this area." Torim is one of fewer than 9,000 Kayapó who remain here. Survival International estimates that of the 5 million indigenous Indians living in Brazil when European settlers came, only 350,000 remain. Torim now lives with his family in Tucamã, an hour from his village, so he can work at the offices of the Protected Forest Association, set up by the tribe in 2002 and backed by international NGOs.

We meet under a tree in the forest, where we are nearly immediately attacked by what he calls Mrum ti, the bullet ants. "I think we have to move," he smiles. "There is a nest here; a bite can give you a fever."When we settle he tells me: "I was born in aldeia Gorotire in 1972, but I was brought up in the Kikretum. I remember when I was a child there were lots of traditional festivities, lots of dancing – we'd go fishing."

Torim's association works in São Felix do Xingu. In 2008 it was infamous for the highest rate of deforestation in Amazonia but for the past four years has registered the country's biggest drop – bucking the overall trend of a 28% rise in the past year.

The turnaround has come from all parties sitting around the table: farmers, politicians and the Kayapó. There is little deforestation within the territory, but threats are all around.

"The biggest is large-scale mining. Things are getting close to our area. Politicians are trying to mess with the laws in the constitution, and without consulting the Kayapó, and we can't accept this. It's coming from the politicians, the mining companies, agrobusiness and dam builders." A Kayapó petition to abandon the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam has garnered almost half a million signatures worldwide, but construction continues. "Our leaders don't accept this dam building, like on the river Xingu. A lot of people will lose their land, so we are worried."

There is a rustle in the forest and out darts an agouti – a large rodent. "We call him Kukei. He is a friend and does good things for us. He takes seeds from here and puts them there and plants the forest."

Today the Association helps the Kayapó generate income from Brazil nuts, cocoa, handicrafts and selling the jaborandi leaf that is used in the treatment of glaucoma. They also sell the seeds of the cumaru tree for perfume, but Torim says they are missing a trick: "We use it to cure bronchitis and headaches.

"The modern generation of Kayapó has changed with technology, and it threatens our traditions. But there are only a few who leave the aldeia [village] and go to the city. If the younger men leave, they learn something and return."We have to fight to guarantee the future," says Torim. "I have one son, who is seven. He must follow in our battles against all these threats. He's already a little warrior." He laughs.


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Voices of Brazil: the actor Brazilians love

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:00 AM PST

'Our TV novela is what cinema is abroad,' says Isis Valverde. 'There is a lot of money involved'

Heavily made up and dressed in a white bathrobe and heels, Isis Valverde marches into a suite at Rio's Copacabana Palace, stretches out an elegant hand to greet me and says, with a winning smile: "Looks like a gringo, huh?"

She could be forgiven a little grandeza: at just 26, the actor is already one of the most famous women in Brazil – a star of novelas, or soap operas, that the country watches every night with such relish. "Our novela is what cinema is abroad. It is very well done. There is a lot of money involved," she says. "A lot more than there is in cinema, which is a great shame, because I am in love with cinema."

Valverde has made just one film to date – a "Brazilian Western" called Faroeste Caboclo – and she previously declined a test for the James Bond film Casino Royale as she was not yet fluent in English, she says, punctuating her rapid-fire Portuguese with frequent husky laughs, and occasionally referring to herself in the third person.

She has just finished filming a mini-series called Amores Roubados (Stolen Loves) for Brazil's dominant Globo network, to which she is exclusively contracted, and is at the Copacabana Palace for a high-glamour photoshoot for a Brazilian newspaper.

This is a role she relishes. "See Isis, full of Dolce e Gabbana, in an amazing hotel," she says. "It shows the different faces you have, in a different way: 'Oh, she's modern, she also likes fashion.'" As Valverde observes, the photoshoot is a vivid contrast to her most famous role to date – that of Suelen, a brash, loud and hugely entertaining footballer's girlfriend from a poor Rio suburb in the hit 2012 novela Avenida Brasil.

The soap caught the imagination of Brazilians with its boisterous characterisation of the lives of the country's "Class C" – a colourful and consumerist lower-middle class created after a decade of economic advancement enabled millions of Brazilians to come out of poverty and become consumers. More than half the population is now classified as Class C, but they had never been so expertly depicted in a soap before.

Clad in skin-tight, colourful leggings, heels and crop tops, Suelen clacked and wise-talked her way into Brazilians hearts, and a new slang word was coined: periguete. "She is that kind of woman who is more self-interested, who wears clothes to show her body, who always likes to wear short, clingy clothes, she is a very vain woman," Valverde explains.

Like the novela, which has since been sold to over 100 countries, the word "periguete" took off in Brazil – there was even a samba written about it. But despite – or perhaps because – of Suelen's inner gold-digger, the character resounded in an extrovert culture which is deeply macho, but which also prizes women with powerful personalities. "The strength of a woman. The seduction of a woman. The way she is potent. I think the character brought this," says Valverde.

Valverde grew up in the small town of Aiuruoca, in the interior of Minas Gerais state. Her father was a chemist and her mother a lawyer and former actor. Isis was signed up for a Globo soap at 17. She always wanted to be an actor. "I think that it is one of the most beautiful expressions that exists, because you live your life, and you live various others," she says.

When a million Brazilians took to the streets in June last year to protest on a range of issues, from failing public services to the costs of staging next year's World Cup, she joined them. "Brazil has to start to focus more on education, on health, on teachers' salaries," she says. "I think that education and health are the principal points for a society to evolve and grow."

Money spent on stadiums could have been better invested, she continues, but she remains cautiously optimistic about the World Cup. "There is a real lack of infrastructure. But I think it will be good for the country."

Instead, she called for better salaries for teachers and an end to a constitutional amendment called PEC 37, which had been passing through Congress, and which would have taken the power of prosecution away from Brazilian public prosecutors and given it to police. PEC 37 was seen as a blueprint for yet more corruption. But Congress threw the amendment out following the protests – which Valverde saw as a success.

"We have to ask for few things. If you ask for a whole list, they end up doing nothing," she adds with a throaty laugh. "But Brazil's endemic corruption is a much bigger problem. "I think it's a big mess. "But we are Brazilians and we never give up."


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Voices of Brazil: the models facing prejudice at home

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:00 AM PST

'Don't they think black people feel the cold,' says Karen Ferreira who, with her identical twin Karina, is a catwalk model

Karen and Karina Ferreira, identical twins and catwalk models from Brasilia, insist that Brazil's modernist capital is one of the best places to live in the world. And that's partly because it is unlike much of the rest of Brazil. "I feel calm, secure and peaceful here," says Karina. But isn't this surreal city, built in the middle of nowhere, home to civil servants, diplomats and politicians, just a little bit boring? "No way," says Karen. "The fact it's a home away from home for so many is a good thing."

The sisters say they will never tire of the city's iconic space-age buildings, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, who died in 2012 aged 104. Yet they spend far less time in their hometown than they would choose. Most of their work is abroad – their clients include Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss and Mango. And one reason for that lies in Brazil's attitude towards beauty. Like Brasilia, it can seem stuck in the 1960s.

Brazil is one of the world's most multiracial societies (in its last census more than 40% of the population described themselves as "mixed race"), yet its most celebrated models are all blonde and blue-eyed.

"People in Brazil need to move their thoughts to the 21st century," says Karen. The prejudice, she says, is most noticeable when it comes to modelling winter clothes, where black models are always overlooked. "Don't people think black people feel the cold?" she asks.

The country's obsession with a beauty ideal that is more Nordic than tropical came to global attention during the World Cup draw, held in the resort of Costa do Sauípe last December. Blonde Brazilian actress and model Fernanda Lima was tasked with compering the event. The role brought Lima a surge in her Twitter fanbase, but some in Brazil suggested the wrong message was being delivered.

"It's a fact: black models have more opportunities outside Brazil," says Karina.

The Brazilian authorities have, tentatively, acknowledged the problem. Rio de Janeiro last year introduced a compulsory quota in its fashion shows, decreeing that at least 10% of models should be black. But a similar initiative in São Paulo was deemed unconstitutional by a city prosecutor and withdrawn.

Economics, rather than ethics, might do the most to change the situation. Brazil's expanding, and largely black, lower middle class is the country's new consumer base. Beauty companies, hoping to tap into that market, are increasingly using black models in their advertising.

The twins say they believe the situation will improve as prejudices are finally overcome. "The one thing I say with complete pride is: 'I am Brazilian,'" says Karina. "Right now everyone wants to know about Brazil," adds Karen. But she admits that is not always for the right reasons. "People really think it's all about parties and football. But it's not."

The sisters say they supported the protests against poor public services and corruption last year, which caught many by surprise. They joined the tens of thousands who swarmed into the grounds of the Congress. "It was the scream of a population that wants to see a better Brazil. I was thrilled," says Karina.

The cost of the World Cup has been a catalysts for the protests. "It's crazy how much Brazil is spending – yet we have people dying in public hospitals, a ridiculous transportation system, an education that needs to improve and a corrupt government," Karina says.

The sisters have mixed feelings about whether it will be a good thing for Brazil. "We want a beautiful party for everyone," says Karen, "but I do wonder if afterwards we'll feel it was all worth it."

Stephen Gibbs

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Voices of Brazil: 'Our hour has arrived'

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:00 AM PST

As hosts of both the World Cup and the Olympics, Brazil is in the spotlight. But what do its people think about their country's transformation? We hear from game-changing politicians and spiritual leaders to athletes, TV stars, industrialists and a police chief about their everyday lives – and what they want from 2014.
See Portraits of Brazil here

Brazil is hosting a back-to-back World Cup and Olympics. When it was announced, the then-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva summed up the mood. "Our hour has arrived," he proclaimed to cheers in 2009.

Few doubted it at the time. Long dismissed as the land of unfulfilled potential, Brazil appeared to be on an unstoppable winning streak. The economy was booming, poverty falling, the destruction of the Amazon was slowing and Lula was one of the most popular presidents in the world. The long-held belief that "God is Brazilian" seemed to ring true. But five years on, with Brazil's hour in the global spotlight imminent, the divine touch seems to have deserted this nation. Last June's street protests – the biggest in a generation – highlighted dissatisfaction with the dire public services, political corruption, police violence and wasteful spending on stadiums. Since 2011 the economy has slowed dramatically. Environmental concerns have been put on the back burner. Dam and mining megaprojects are eating into land owned by indigenous tribes. Conservationists appear increasingly sidelined and Amazon clearance has suffered its sharpest uptick in a decade.

Throw in delays and deaths at stadium construction sites, shoddy infrastructure, high murder rates and a presidential election, and it is clear that Brazil could come out of 2014 looking a lot worse than it went in. Just as likely, though, is that the government, now led by Dilma Rousseff, will muddle through, bend the rules a little and try to make everyone happy with a creative last-minute fudge. Such is the culture of the jeitinho Brasileiro – "the Brazilian short cut".

We can expect to weigh up that approach a great deal in 2014 as the world dwells long enough on Brazil to go beyond the old stereotypes of carnival, coffee, beaches and football.

No single image, of course, could ever do justice to this nation. More than twice as large as Europe, Brazil has a population of 199 million, made up of descendants of colonial settlers, their slaves, survivors of the indigenous tribes they decimated and 20th-century waves of migration from Japan, Lebanon, Europe and elsewhere.

The predominantly white elites of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasilia enjoy a standard of living as good as anywhere on the planet. But the masses in megacities such as Salvador and Recife are plagued by some of the world's highest rates of murder and crack addiction. In rural areas, plantation owners have a grip on local politics in the northeast that is little short of feudal, while the soy and cattle barons of the interior push landless peasants and Indian communities further to the margins.

A more positive and common story is that of the numerous poor communities whose lives have been significantly improved in recent years by cash transfers from the government. But not everyone wants more cash and civilisation. Brazil is also still home to some of the world's last uncontacted tribes.

Fully understanding what makes such a country tick in a single story is futile. Instead, this series of interviews presents a snapshot of Brazil as it enters this pivotal year. Many of the individuals are little known in the outside world, but they highlight trends in society.

We interview, among many others, the politician who has earned plaudits for standing on a platform of gay rights. We talk to a health worker – one of many in the public sector who believes that dire services are a major cause of unrest – and a member of the Mídia Ninja collective challenging the way news organisations cover social activism.

In the world of culture, we skip samba and bossanova to meet a leading influence in funk carioca, the sound that has spread from favela parties to the mainstream. We also interview Isis Valverde, an actor and campaigner for social equality.

For a take on the spiritual life of the nation, the alternative is still further from conventionality. Brazil is often described as the world's biggest Catholic nation, but that is only half the story. Divaldo Franco, a spiritual medium who claims to speak to the dead and who has adopted more than 600 abandoned children, is among the most popular figures in the country. On the environment and human rights side we talk to a tribal leader, and for sport we introduce Ca̤a-Rato Рa striker who rose from catching rats as a child to scoring the goal that secured promotion for Santa Cruz.

We hope to introduce some intriguing characters and highlight what may well be Brazil's defining characteristic: diversity. Socially liberal, religiously conservative, politically progressive and economically divided, this country defies easy categorisation. Whether Brazil's time has indeed come, this year should at least leave the world with a broader view of what it represents.

Jonathan Watts

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Voices of Brazil: the politician who won Big Brother

Posted: 26 Jan 2014 12:00 AM PST

'I fear Brazil will become a theocratic republic', says Jean Wyllys, a gay professor who won Big Brother and is now a member of the Socialism and Liberty party

Having gone from poverty to parliament via Big Brother and Brazil's first gay-rights election platform, Jean Wyllys must rank among the most postmodern of politicians. How else to describe a professor who exploded into the national consciousness when he entered a reality TV show in 2005 because, he said, it was the only way he could conduct an ethnographic study of how it worked?

Despite the prejudices of what he described as a "homophobic nation", his wit and openness were a huge hit with the public. The gay academic emerged from the Big Brother house as winner. He triumphed in a more traditional popularity contest five years later when he became the first federal deputy to campaign for the LGBT movement. It is a remarkable record for a 39-year-old who grew up on the periphery of a city in Bahia, a northeast state, with some of the worst poverty in the country.

Wyllys was one of seven children of illiterate parents. His home lacked electricity and drinkable water. He often went hungry and lost a sister to typhoid. At 10 he sold popcorn on the street for extra money, but he knew the value of education. He never left school and immersed himself in the extracurricular teachings of Catholic priests, who lent him books and taught him about social rights.

Wyllys is now a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party, which broke away from the governing camp and is pursuing a more radical agenda. It advocates greater spending on health and education and more action on behalf of marginalised communities. With a presidential election, a World Cup and possibly more protests, Wyllys expects 2014 to be a pivotal year in Brazilian politics after more than a decade of relative smooth sailing for the ruling Workers' Party.

He predicts tensions will mount between the two poles of Brazilian politics: a conservative camp of bankers, businesses, religious fundamentalists and those who miss the dictatorship that ended in 1985 – and a progressive camp comprising the LGBT movement, indigenous rights supporters and racial equality campaigners. "I expect to see greater radicalism and violence as the two forces come more to the fore," he says. "People want more than food and more than the consumer market; they want transparency in politics, transparency in public spending, less corruption between the state and private sector, and they want more participation in the political system."

His views reflect the disillusionment some on the left feel 10 years after the Workers' Party took power. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidency in 2003 with a promise to tackle inequality and corruption. But the government – now under his successor Dilma Rousseff – has been tainted by scandal and has had to make compromises that many supporters find unacceptable, including deals with politicians from the growing evangelical movement. These powerful right-wing groups are becoming more influential. One of their most outspoken representatives, the preacher Marco Feliciano, has declared Aids to be a "gay cancer" and Africans to be "cursed since the times of Noah". Despite this, he was appointed last year as president of the Commission for Human Rights and Minorities in Brazil's lower house of parliament.

"My fear is that Brazil will become a theocratic republic," Wyllys says. "I'm worried they could restrict liberties for ethnic, religious and sexual minorities." But he also sees opportunities in the coming 12 months which will put his country's politics and society under the spotlight like never before.

"Brazil is in a position where we have the potential to be a world leader, but we fall far behind in quality of education and health. We will only be able to lead if we can guarantee quality of life to our citizens." Pressing for such rights is likely to require a political fight.

"There are many senators and deputies who are homophobic," he says. "But they don't have the courage to openly discriminate against me because they know I'm prepared to defend against discrimination. My image demands respect."

Jonathan Watts

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Australian director Sophie Hyde wins prize at Sundance film festival

Posted: 25 Jan 2014 11:52 PM PST

Adelaide-based film maker takes award for 52 Tuesdays, which looks at how a teenage girl deals with mother's gender transition



All three main parties are jittery. Which one can hold its nerve? | Andrew Rawnsley

Posted: 25 Jan 2014 11:30 PM PST

With the Euro-elections coming up, and dissent and angst in all their ranks, the leader who can stop his MPs from losing their heads may prevail

If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend watching the evisceration of Nigel Farage at the hands of Andrew Neil on the BBC's Daily Politics. The redoubtable Mr Neil adopted the relatively straightforward technique of inquiring about Ukip's policies. This worked a treat because the party's leader was utterly clueless about what they were.

"Ukip is now against replacing Trident?" asked Neil. "I'm not sure where you got that from," blustered Farage. "From your website," said Neil. "I'm not the expert in websites," flailed Farage. "And you want a compulsory dress code for taxi drivers?" asked Neil. "Do we?" floundered Farage. "News to me." The Ukipper was comprehensively kippered.

He has since been reduced to denouncing the manifesto on which he stood at the last general election as "drivel" and declaring that all previous Ukip policies are now non-operative. So it is a sad farewell to such beauties as repainting British trains in "traditional" colours, a flat tax and regular deployment of the army on the streets.

"None of it stands today and we will launch it all after the European elections."

Ukip will be the first political party in history to go into an election with no policies. Except, obviously, for withdrawing from the European Union and except, perhaps, for a commitment to establishing more grammar schools, a subject over which the EU has no competence anyway. Naturally, his opponents have had great fun pillorying Nigel Farage. But you know what? I doubt it will make any discernible difference whatsoever to the votes that he attracts.

People do not vote Ukip because they expect – or even want – to see the implementation of a Ukip manifesto by prime minister Farage and a Ukip cabinet composed of the sort of people who think the recent floods were divine retribution on David Cameron for legislating in favour of gay marriage. When asked to explain their backing for the Farageistes, the great majority of Ukip supporters say they want to "send a message" to Westminster, the classic response of the angry protest voter.

Those who put together focus groups tell me that switchers to Ukip have very little idea about the party's policies other than that it would get out of the EU and "do something" about immigration. Most people's voting intentions are a product of a mix of the rational and emotional sides of the brain. A Ukip vote, more than any other, is a visceral response. It is a bellow of anger against the modern world and a roar of contempt for Westminster politicians. That makes them particularly hard for the mainstream parties to deal with.

The Tory high command already assumes that they will be beaten by Ukip in the Euro-elections at the end of May. They are braced for the Conservatives being pushed into third place, something that has not happened to the Tories in a nationwide election for a very long time.

About that, senior Conservatives seem fairly sanguine – or, at any rate, are quite good at pretending to be so. More than any other type of midterm contest, the Euro-elections are a vehicle for protest voting, for sticking out your tongue at Westminster and blowing a loud and long raspberry in the general direction of London SW1. William Hague "won" the Euro-elections of 1999. Two years later, he went down to a landslide defeat at the general election.

David Cameron believes that when it comes to the general election crunch next year, when the contest is framed as blue against red, Cameron versus Miliband, he will be able to put the squeeze on the Ukip vote. One Tory member of the cabinet remarks: "People in my constituency already say to me, 'I'm going to vote Ukip in the Euros, but don't worry, I'll vote for you in the general election."

What really scares Number 10 is not so much how dire the result might look for the Tories – a bad night is already factored into their calculations – but how the Conservative party will respond to a drubbing administered by Nigel and his gang. I recently asked an extremely senior Conservative member of the cabinet: "When the Euro results come in, will your party remain sane?" After a moment's pause, he replied: "That is the question of the year."

If those at the apex of the Tory party cannot be sure that their MPs will keep their heads, then the odds must be high that they will go off them. Some Conservatives are genuinely panicked about what a strong Ukip vote will imply for Tory prospects in seats where it might make the difference between victory and defeat. At the very least, they fear that it makes their chances of winning a parliamentary majority even more elusive. Then there are those Tories of the right who will work themselves up into a pretend panic as a way of trying to drag David Cameron further rightwards. Centrist Tories warn the prime minister that you can't outkip the Kippers so it is best not to try. He tells them that "he gets that" and understands that "chasing after Ukip" is the wrong way to deal with them. The trouble is he has previously responded to the menace on his right flank by doing just that.

In the bleakest of scenarios being discussed within Number 10, the Euro-elections are the trigger for the Tory party to do one of its impersonations of a headless chicken, a revival of talk about leadership challenges and a downward descent towards uncivil war.

The Tories are not the only party in which confidence is brittle. Labour has generally been better at masking its internal angsts, but it, too, is racked by anxieties about its prospects of winning the next general election and strung with tensions about how best to maximise its chances. Some of that bubbled to the surface last summer. Ed Miliband managed to calm things down with his successful party conference speech. But those jitters haven't gone away. In some respects, they have got worse. There is the fear that the "cost of living" agenda that has worked pretty well for Labour over the past few months will look tired and irrelevant to many voters by May 2015 if the pace of economic recovery continues to accelerate and the Tories are able to go into the contest on the back of six quarters of economic growth.

Labour also worries, and rightly so, about its poor ratings for economic competence. The speech delivered by Ed Balls to the Fabian Society yesterday, in which the shadow chancellor pledged a Labour government to clearing the current account deficit over the lifetime of the next parliament, is a significant moment. But it raises as many questions as it answers, not least about the balance of tax rises and spending cuts he would implement to achieve the objective. Both the Eds are conscious that it will take much more than one speech to counter voter scepticism about Labour as competent custodians of the national finances.

There is also a crucial, unresolved, argument in Labour's senior ranks about the nature of the offer that the party should make to the electorate. Some believe that Labour needs to be big and bold with its promises to cut through the deep levels of cynicism and fatalism among so many voters. Others think that this is an environment in which they need to do precisely the opposite and make only modest pledges both to avoid handing hostages to fortune to their opponents and to look credible. "Shrinking the offer" is the unlovely phrase for this line of thinking among Labour people.

At the moment, Labour continues to enjoy a poll advantage that would translate into a Labour government, which has helped keep a check on these internal arguments. The lid on Labour's internal divisions could be blown off by a shrinking poll lead and/or an underwhelming performance in the May elections. Labour really has to be breaking through the 40% barrier, a threshold both electorally and psychologically important, this spring.

They are already suggesting that they will be unable to do that in the Euro-elections because of the Ukip factor.

They are pinning their hopes on a better result in the accompanying local government elections, which include London councils. A good showing in those is increasingly seen as absolutely vital if Labour is to keep its cool.

The remarkable thing about the Lib Dems is how calm they have been in the face of so much adversity. They have lost more than half of the voters who supported them at the last general election. Their councillors have been culled. They have been relentlessly pulverised at byelections. They have been beset by scandal. The Rennard affair has left the party looking amateurish and divided and its leader too weak to impose his will on his peers. Further humiliation this May could be the trigger for the Lib Dems to finally lose it.

In politics, victory often goes neither to the swift nor to the strong, but to he or she who can simply hold their nerve. The question of this year is perhaps not which party should be panicking. They all have reasons to be fearful. The question that may matter most is: who panics first?

Andrew Rawnsley

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Anti-Irish hatred has no place in modern Scotland | Kevin McKenna

Posted: 25 Jan 2014 10:04 PM PST

Scotland still doesn't know quite what to make of the Irish in its midst

More than a century and a half after they first began to arrive here in numbers, Scotland still doesn't know quite what to make of the Irish in its midst. For many decades, the narrative favoured by the four main pillars of Scottish society – media, church, legislature and judiciary – was one that portrayed them as ignorant, dirty, feckless and not fit for meaningful work. They had to be watched at all times. For, if hard-working, honest and upstanding Britons turned their backs for just one second they would find themselves with a knife between the ribs and a revolution on their hands.

The old peddled myths have largely dissipated in the intervening years but, sporadically, vignettes appear that remind you that some parts of Scottish society still have issues with the Irish.

Earlier this month in Glasgow, three young Irish people, including two from Donegal over visiting relatives, claimed that they were forced to leave the taxi they had booked following a night out. They said they had taken this course of action after the driver had aggressively asked them to stop conversing in Irish Gaelic, the first language of two of the passengers. The taxi firm then added insult to alleged injury when its spokesman implied that they had all been drunk because, well… it was late at night and they were all from Donegal.

A few days later, a 41-year-old Ayrshire man, David Limond, was convicted of making sectarian and racist threats to a young female journalist in which he urged listeners to his radio podcast to abuse her on Twitter. The journalist, Angela Haggerty, is taking her first steps in her chosen career and works for the highly respected business and media magazine, The Drum.

As well as writing for the magazine Haggerty blogs, tweets and Facebooks. She also, palpably, takes no shit and, as such, represents the vibrant future of Scottish journalism. She says she is also proud of her Irish heritage "and that seems to irk people like Mr Limond".

One of the activities that led Haggerty to being called "Taig of the Day" by Mr Limond was editing a book Minority Reporter: Modern Scotland's Bad Attitude Towards Her Own Irish by the controversial Scots/Irish author and journalist Phil Mac Giolla Bhain, in which he addresses the issue of anti-Irish racism in Scotland.

Mac Giolla Bhain is a troublemaker and a pain in the arse, two attributes that ought to be de rigueur for anyone seeking to make it in our trade. He is also a razor-sharp investigative journalist and respected activist in the National Union of Journalists who has been published all over the world. Several of his blogs broke important exclusives about the impending downfall of Rangers FC and embarrassed many Scottish football writers who simply chose to look the other way as the Ibrox edifice began to quake.

He and I, though, have a little bit of previous. This stems from my view that anti-Irishness in modern Scotland can be prone to exaggeration and can lead to an unfortunate victim complex among those who claim to observe it lurking in the shadows of Scottish society. Indeed, Mac Giolla Bhain, in an on-line piece for the Guardian, once took me to task for espousing such views.

Nevertheless, Minority Reporter is a thoroughly well-researched and well-written book that is of vital importance in understanding this fraught relationship between Scotland and her Irish immigrant population. Indeed, it might also be said that the failure of any Scottish newspaper to review the book thus far is a symptom of the boil that the author seeks to lance. He cites The Famine Song with its infamous chorus: "The famine's over, why don't you go home" as being racist in the extreme as well as mocking the human catastrophe of the Great Famine (An Gorta Mór).

He also rails against Scotland's political classes for being dilatory in their response to this. Indeed, it was only after the matter was raised in the Irish parliament and Irish media that The Famine Song was deemed to be worthy of criminal prosecution. And yet I wonder how Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King would have regarded ordeal by the singing of a dodgy song, they whose people had to endure lynchings, violence and hatred every day of their lives.

Mac Giolla Bhain also cites the 10-year ordeal of Neil Lennon, Celtic's Irish manager, in Scotland that, following several assaults and death threats, culminated in two men being jailed for trying to send a homemade bomb to him. And, in a very poignant section, he laments the extent to which Scots of Irish lineage have been discouraged from celebrating their ethnicity while those of Italian and Asian descent, for instance, have not. I suppose I am one of the Scots/Irish who have disappointed Mac Giolla Bhain. I am proud of my Irish heritage, but prouder still that I was born a Scot. Being Scottish defines me more than the country that my great-grandparents left at the start of the last century. When Scotland play Ireland it's Scotland every time (though it's Ireland against everybody else). Through education, hard work, a great deal of humour and no little charm the Irish in Scotland have largely overcome the prejudices and practices that prevailed for most of the 20th century.

It would be wise to take a step back from the outrage engendered by The Famine Song and the baiting of Neil Lennon and an ignorant taxi-driver and an online troll and observe them for what they are: the death rattle of a culture that most of Scotland has rejected.

An Gorta Mór only discriminated between rich and poor, not between Catholic and Protestant. In a land of plenty, you died if you were poor. When Glasgow unveils its long overdue memorial to the Great Famine it should be a rallying point for all – Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Muslim – to unite against their real enemy: unfettered capitalism and the greed and corruption that always follow in its wake.

Minority Reporter: Modern Scotland's Bad Attitude Towards Her Own Irish is published by Frontline Noir. £9.99. To order a copy for £7.99 with free UK p&p go to guardianbookshop.co.uk or call 0330 333 6846

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Kevin McKenna

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