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Monday, 18 April 2016

Brazil's Dilma Rousseff vows to fight on

Pro-impeachment supporters celebrated their victory, as Wyre Davies reports

Following a defeat in the lower house of Congress, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff has vowed to keep on fighting against moves to impeach her, Attorney General Eduardo Cardozo has said.

On Sunday, lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favour of a motion to impeach her on claims she manipulated government accounts.

She has denied the allegations and described the move as a "coup".

The motion will now go to the upper house.

A vote in the Senate is expected in May, and reports suggest most senators will vote against the president.

If that vote goes against her, she will be suspended while the Senate proceeds with the impeachment trial.

'Not disheartened'

Mr Cardozo said Ms Rousseff would not give up.

"The president will not be disheartened and will not stop fighting," he said.

"If someone thinks she is going to bow down now, they are fooling themselves," Mr Cardozo added.

• Who will lead Brazil if Dilma Rousseff is impeached?

Ms Rousseff is expected to make her first public remarks about the vote later on Monday.

How big was the blow?

Impeachment supporters netted 367 votes in the lower house of Congress, well above the 342 they needed.

The "no" camp took 137 votes, seven deputies abstained and two did not show for the ballot.

Victory celebrations were loud and colourful among the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who watched the vote live on huge TV screens on city streets across the country.

• The vote as it happened

What comes next?

Early next month, the Senate will vote on whether to put the president on trial.

If the vote passes, she will be suspended and replaced by Vice-President Michel Temer.

A Senate trial could last up to six months. If at the end of it two-thirds of senators were to vote to impeach, Dilma Rousseff would be out of office for good.

Temer as president? Analysis by Daniel Gallas, BBC News, Brazil

Vice-President Michel Temer grinned as he watched the televised vote in Brasilia

Most Brazilians would be forgiven if they saw a picture of Michel Temer and did not recognise him. Yet this 75-year-old law professor may soon be leading a country amid its most serious political and economic crisis in decades - if President Rousseff loses the battle against impeachment.

Mr Temer's most notable achievement as a politician has been to help the country's biggest political party - the PMDB - form coalitions with every president in the past two decades. He is currently party president.

Rather like his party, which has not held outright power for over two decades, Mr Temer has always been a kingmaker, but never king.

Who could lead Brazil?

What is Rousseff accused of doing?

Dilma Rousseff says she has done nothing criminal

Brazilian governments are required to meet budget surplus targets set in Congress, which investors regard as a measure of economic health.

Ms Rousseff is accused of allowing creative accounting techniques involving loans from public banks to the treasury, which artificially enhanced the budget surplus.

She argues that she did nothing criminal but her opponents are unforgiving.

"We fought a lot to sack this corrupt government, which destroyed our industry, jobs and left chaos in all social classes," demonstrator Marisa Cardamone, 75, told AFP news agency in Sao Paulo.

Why is she so unpopular?

An effigy of Ms Rousseff portrays her in a prison uniform

Today, Dilma Rousseff presents a sorry contrast to her popular predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whom she succeeded in 2011.

Critics say she took an arrogant attitude to Congress and her economic policies were misguided, even if she enjoyed some credit as an honest politician in a political world mired by corruption investigations.

• How it all went so wrong

Who are the alternatives?

Vice-President Temer could face impeachment himself over the same accusations as those put to Ms Rousseff.

Two other possible successors, lower house Speaker Eduardo Cunha and Renan Calheiros, face corruption allegations.

The three men, who all deny the allegations against them, are from the PMDB - the largest party in the coalition, which abandoned Ms Rousseff to support the impeachment.

"I'm happy because I think Dilma had to go but I'm also sad that it came to this and also really worried that the next president could be even worse,'' Patricia Santos, a 52-year-old small business owner among the demonstrators outside Congress, told AP.

Dangerous days for Brazil?

The metal wall in Brasilia has become a symbol of the country's divisions

There is no suggestion that the fight promised by the Workers' Party "in the streets and in the Senate" will be anything but political, though Brazilians are certainly bitterly divided.

Passions are so high on both sides that the authorities erected a makeshift 2m (6.5ft) high metal wall, stretching for 1km (0.6 miles), to keep thousands of rival demonstrators apart outside Congress in Brasilia.

Ms Rousseff and her allies have accused their opponents of mounting a coup. "This fascist congress wants to lead a coup d'etat against Brazil's democracy but they will not succeed," one protester told AP.

Impeachment vote was broadcast live on TV and closely watched by millions of Brazilians

The front page of Brazil's right-leaning paper O Globo carries a photo of MPs celebrating under the headline "Close to the End". A headline in the left-leaning online magazine Revista Forum reminds readers the impeachment still has to clear the Senate.

In the hours after the vote (central Brazil is three hours behind GMT), two of the top hash tags on Twitter in Brazil were #AlutaComecou ("the struggle begins"), used by both sides, and #ValeuCunha ("Thank you, Cunha") - addressed to the parliamentary speaker.

There was no immediate comment from the president herself but her chief of staff, Jacques Wagner, accused parliament of "threatening to interrupt 30 years of democracy in the country", which was under military rule until 1985.

Are the Olympics likely to be affected?

The Olympic aquatics venue in Rio

Olympics chiefs say preparations for the Games in Rio this August are on track despite Brazil's political and economic troubles.

Brazil's Dilma Rousseff vows to fight on

Pro-impeachment supporters celebrated their victory, as Wyre Davies reports

Following a defeat in the lower house of Congress, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff has vowed to keep on fighting against moves to impeach her, Attorney General Eduardo Cardozo has said.

On Sunday, lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favour of a motion to impeach her on claims she manipulated government accounts.

She has denied the allegations and described the move as a "coup".

The motion will now go to the upper house.

A vote in the Senate is expected in May, and reports suggest most senators will vote against the president.

If that vote goes against her, she will be suspended while the Senate proceeds with the impeachment trial.

'Not disheartened'

Mr Cardozo said Ms Rousseff would not give up.

"The president will not be disheartened and will not stop fighting," he said.

"If someone thinks she is going to bow down now, they are fooling themselves," Mr Cardozo added.

• Who will lead Brazil if Dilma Rousseff is impeached?

Ms Rousseff is expected to make her first public remarks about the vote later on Monday.

How big was the blow?

Impeachment supporters netted 367 votes in the lower house of Congress, well above the 342 they needed.

The "no" camp took 137 votes, seven deputies abstained and two did not show for the ballot.

Victory celebrations were loud and colourful among the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who watched the vote live on huge TV screens on city streets across the country.

• The vote as it happened

What comes next?

Early next month, the Senate will vote on whether to put the president on trial.

If the vote passes, she will be suspended and replaced by Vice-President Michel Temer.

A Senate trial could last up to six months. If at the end of it two-thirds of senators were to vote to impeach, Dilma Rousseff would be out of office for good.

Temer as president? Analysis by Daniel Gallas, BBC News, Brazil

Vice-President Michel Temer grinned as he watched the televised vote in Brasilia

Rather like his party, which has not held outright power for over two decades, Mr Temer has always been a kingmaker, but never king.

Who could lead Brazil?

What is Rousseff accused of doing?

Dilma Rousseff says she has done nothing criminal

Brazilian governments are required to meet budget surplus targets set in Congress, which investors regard as a measure of economic health.

Ms Rousseff is accused of allowing creative accounting techniques involving loans from public banks to the treasury, which artificially enhanced the budget surplus.

She argues that she did nothing criminal but her opponents are unforgiving.

"We fought a lot to sack this corrupt government, which destroyed our industry, jobs and left chaos in all social classes," demonstrator Marisa Cardamone, 75, told AFP news agency in Sao Paulo.

Why is she so unpopular?

An effigy of Ms Rousseff portrays her in a prison uniform

Today, Dilma Rousseff presents a sorry contrast to her popular predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whom she succeeded in 2011.

• How it all went so wrong

Who are the alternatives?

Vice-President Temer could face impeachment himself over the same accusations as those put to Ms Rousseff.

Two other possible successors, lower house Speaker Eduardo Cunha and Renan Calheiros, face corruption allegations.

The three men, who all deny the allegations against them, are from the PMDB - the largest party in the coalition, which abandoned Ms Rousseff to support the impeachment.

Dangerous days for Brazil?

The metal wall in Brasilia has become a symbol of the country's divisions

There is no suggestion that the fight promised by the Workers' Party "in the streets and in the Senate" will be anything but political, though Brazilians are certainly bitterly divided.

Impeachment vote was broadcast live on TV and closely watched by millions of Brazilians

Are the Olympics likely to be affected?

The Olympic aquatics venue in Rio

Olympics chiefs say preparations for the Games in Rio this August are on track despite Brazil's political and economic troubles.

Ecuador quake death toll rise to 350

More than 200 people are now known to have died in the earthquake

The number of people killed in a powerful earthquake that struck Ecuador over the weekend has risen to about 350, the government has said.

There have been desperate scenes as rescuers and family members searched for survivors, often with bare hands.

Teams from Switzerland, Spain and several Latin American countries have arrived to join the search effort.

More than 2,000 people were injured in the quake, Ecuador's most powerful in decades, which hit its Pacific coast.

Earlier, President Rafael Correa warned that the death toll was likely to rise, and said there were still people alive under the rubble of collapsed buildings. He said it was the biggest tragedy to hit Ecuador in the past seven decades.

Nun Clare Theresa Crockett, from Northern Ireland, was killed when the quake destroyed her school in the Ecuadorean town of Playa Prieta

Some people left homeless by the quake had to sleep under a makeshift emergency shelter outside the main emergency centre in the town of Portoviejo

Much of the city of Pedernales was flattened

President Correa visited some of the people affected by the disaster after cutting short a visit to Italy to return to his home country.

"I fear that figure will go up because we keep on removing rubble," a shaken Mr Correa said in a televised address. "There are signs of life in the rubble, and that is being prioritised."

The president warned that the quake will cost Ecuador billions of dollars. It comes at a time when the oil-producing country is already reeling from the slump in global crude prices.

Correspondents say that while the country's energy industry survived the quake mostly intact - the main refinery of Esmeraldas was closed as a precaution - exports of bananas, flowers, cocoa beans and fish could be delayed because of impassable roads and hold-ups at ports.

Foreign Minister Guillaume Long praised those nations which had contributed to the rescue effort.

He tweeted (in Spanish) that as many as 120 mobile rescue teams would be on the ground by Tuesday morning.

The magnitude-7.8 quake struck on Saturday evening. Coastal areas in the north-west were closest to the epicentre. There have been about 230 aftershocks across the country.

A state of emergency has been declared and some 10,000 troops and 3,500 police have been deployed in the affected areas.

In Pedernales, close to the epicentre, as many as 400 people are feared dead. Mayor Gabriel Alcivar said the "entire town" had been flattened.

"Pedernales is devastated. Buildings have fallen down, especially hotels where there are lots of tourists staying. There are lots of dead bodies," he told local media.

"We're trying to do the most we can but there's almost nothing we can do," he added, warning that looting had broken out.

Residents in the city of Portoviejo have complained of the stench of decaying bodies

Many residents in Pedernales are having to sleep outside

More than 600 people have been treated for injuries at tents in the town's football stadium, with many others taken by ambulance or helicopter to regional hospitals. The stadium also served as a makeshift morgue, Reuters reported, with at least 90 bodies taken there.

Many residents of the town are due to spend Monday night sleeping outside on mattresses in muggy and tropical conditions and afraid of more aftershocks.

Firefighters throughout Monday conducted rescue operations in destroyed buildings, demanding silence so they could listen for cries for help.

Meanwhile, queues for essential supplies such as bottled water, blankets and food formed around the stadium's walls, as residents complained that electricity shortages were preventing them from using mobile phones to contact loved ones.

"There's nothing left of the houses and nowhere safe to stay," resident Betty Reyna, 44, told Reuters as she camped out with members of her family.

More than 1,000 policemen are patrolling the streets of Pedernales ahead of an expected visit by the president.

Decaying bodies

In Portoviejo, a city of 300,000, 15km (10 miles) from the coast, rescuers rushed to search the debris of flattened buildings for survivors as residents reported the stench of decaying bodies beneath the rubble.

"We have already recovered three dead and we believe there are 10 to 11 people still trapped," a rescue worker, who was digging through the debris of a six-storey hotel, told AFP news agency.

Four members of the same family were killed when a building collapsed on their car, the Associated Press reported. The Quinde family had travelled to the city, where 17-year-old daughter Sayira was due to start university next week.

Elsewhere in Portoviejo, the vibrations reduced part of the city's prison to rubble, allowing 100 inmates to escape. Some were recaptured but others remained on the run, Justice Minister Ledy Zuniga said on Twitter.

The quake cut power supplies along the coast. With too few emergency shelters, many residents have spent two nights out in the open.

In Portoviejo, where looting was reported, about 400 residents gathered at the city's former airport to queue for water and other supplies.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake struck at a fairly shallow depth of 19.2km (11.9 miles), about 27km from Muisne in a sparsely populated area.

The quake was also felt in neighbouring Colombia.

Scientists say there is no connection between the quake in Ecuador and a severe tremor in southern Japan, which also occurred on Saturday.

Mass migrant drowning in Med - survivors

The group said they were travelling from Tobruk in Libya to Italy when their boat capsized

Hundreds of migrants drowned when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean, survivors have told the BBC - although there is no official confirmation.

The 41 survivors say they were transferred to another vessel when it sank in the middle of the night.

They said that up to 500 people died, but coastguards in the region have been unable to confirm their accounts.

Numbers of migrants making the dangerous sea route from Libya to Italy have surged this year.

• Africa Live: The day's top stories highlights

• Migrant crisis explained in graphics

The survivors, from Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Egypt, spoke to the BBC from the southern Greek city of Kalamata, where they are being held after their rescue.

According to the group, about 240 migrants left the Libyan port city of Tobruk heading for Italy.

Once out in the Mediterranean, they said they were transferred to a larger boat already packed with more than 300 people, which then capsized.

The survivors were then picked up by a cargo ship, whose crew told the BBC that the migrants initially refused to be handed over to the Greek coastguard as they were determined to get to Italy.

The group was rescued by a cargo ship, whose company gave the BBC these pictures

A Somali woman living in Egypt told the BBC Somali service that three of her relatives, whom she had not heard from since they set out for Europe on Thursday, had died.

The presidents of both Somalia and the self-declared Republic of Somaliland offered their condolences over the incident. The Somali embassy in Cairo put the death toll at almost 400.

But the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has cast doubt, tweeting that the information hundreds had died appeared "inaccurate".

The fact that the boat capsized at night in open sea may well have contributed to the lack of clear information available, correspondents say.

In a separate incident, six bodies were recovered and 108 migrants rescued when a rubber dinghy sank off the coast of Libya, according to the organisation SOS Mediterranean.

The boat was partially deflated, taking on water and its engine was out of use, the rescue group said.

The number of migrants arriving in Italy from Greece has surged recently - about 6,000 made the journey alone over a three-day period last week, the International Organisation for Migration said.

The deaths come on the eve of the first anniversary of the sinking of a migrant boat in the waters between Libya and Lampedusa in which up to 800 people may have drowned.

About 180,000 people have attempted to reach Europe by sea this year, with nearly 800 lives lost, the UN says.