SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
brazil
Top Brazilian Official Warns Trump of 'Vietnam-Style' Regional Conflict If He Attacks Venezuela
"The last thing we want is for South America to become a war zone," said Celso Amorim, chief foreign policy adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Dec 08, 2025
A top Brazilian official is warning President Donald Trump that a US military attack on Venezuela could easily spiral out of control into a "Vietnam-style" regional conflict.
Celso Amorim, chief foreign policy adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said in an interview published on Monday by the Guardian that a US military strike on Venezuela would inevitably draw nations throughout Latin America into an armed conflict that would be difficult to contain.
"The last thing we want is for South America to become a war zone—and a war zone that would inevitably not just be a war between the US and Venezuela," he said. "It would end up having global involvement and this would be really unfortunate."
Amorim added that "if there was an invasion, a real invasion [of Venezuela]... I think undoubtedly you would see something similar to Vietnam—on what scale it’s impossible to say."
While acknowledging that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is disliked by many other South American leaders, Amorim predicted that even some of Maduro's adversaries would rally to his side in the face of destabilizing military actions by the US government.
He also predicted that anti-US sentiment would surge throughout the continent in the event of an invasion, as there is still major resentment toward the US for backing right-wing military coups during the Cold War in Chile, Brazil, and other nations.
"I know South America," he emphasized. "Our whole continent exists because of resistance against foreign invaders."
The Trump administration in recent weeks has signaled that it plans to launch attacks against purported drug traffickers inside Venezuela, even though reports from the US government and the United Nations have not identified Venezuela as a significant source of drugs that enter the United States.
The administration has also accused Maduro of leading an international drug trafficking organization called the Cartel de los Soles, despite many experts saying that they have seen no evidence that such an organization formally exists.
Trump late last month further escalated tensions with Venezuela when he declared that airspace over the nation was "closed in its entirety," even though he lacks any legal authority to enforce such a decree.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that Maduro is remaining defiant in the face of US pressure, as he is refusing to go into exile despite the threat of an attack on his country.
According to the Post's sources, Maduro's inner circle of allies "shows no signs of imminent collapse," even as he has limited his public appearances and beefed up his personal security amid fears that he could be the target of an assassination attempt.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Brazil Just Succeeded Where America Failed' as Coup-Plotting Ex-Pres Bolsonaro Arrested
Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro was taken into custody over concerns he might attempt to flee the country after he tampered with his ankle monitor.
Nov 22, 2025
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing ally of US President Donald Trump, was arrested in Brazil early Saturday morning following concerns he might flee the country.
Bolsonaro was under house arrest awaiting the result of his appeal after he was tried and sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup and the assassination of current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other officials.
“Brazil just succeeded where America failed. Bringing a former president who assaulted democracy to justice,” filmmaker Petra Costa wrote on social media, as The Guardian reported.
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the arrest after discovering Bolsonaro's ankle monitor had been tampered with at 12:08 am local time Saturday. Bolsonaro's lawyers said that this was not the case, but Bolsonaro later admitted to taking a soldering iron to the device "out of curiosity" in a video released by the Supreme Court.
"This isn't curiosity, it's a crime," said State Deputy to the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro Renata da Silva Souza, on social media. "Bolsonaro is not a victim: He is convicted, ineligible, and is IMPRISONED. Turning this absurdity into a justification is a mockery of Brazilian democracy."
The ex-president's arrest also came the same day that his son Flávio Bolsonaro had planned a protest outside the Brasilia condo where Bolsonaro has been living.
De Moraes said Bolsonaro's tampering with his monitor fed his suspicions that he would attempt to flee the country in “the confusion that would be caused by a demonstration organized by his son," according to The Associated Press.
“He is located about 13 kilometers (8 miles) away from where the United States of America embassy lies, in a distance that can be covered in a 15-minute drive," de Moraes added.
Trump, who has sanctioned de Moraes and supports Bolsonaro, reacted to news of the arrest by saying it was "too bad."
Bolsonaro was arrested around 6:00 am local time and is now detained in an approximately 130-square-foot room in the federal police headquarters in Brasilia, according to Reuters. The entire five-judge panel that originally sentenced Bolsonaro will review his detention on Monday.
Institutional Relations Minister Gleisi Hoffmann was the highest-ranking member of the current government to comment on the detention, according to Reuters.
Hoffmann wrote on social media:
The pretrial detention of Jair Bolsonaro strictly follows the rites of due process of law, overseen by the Federal Supreme Court and the Attorney General's Office in each stage of the criminal action against the attempted coup d'état in Brazil. The decision by Minister Alexandre de Moraes is grounded in the real risks of flight by the leader of the coup organization, as well as the imminent finality of his conviction for the serving of his sentence. It also rightly takes into account the background of a process marked by violent attempts to coerce the Judiciary, such as the tarifaço and the Magnitsky sanctions. In a democracy, justice must be upheld.
Ordinary Brazilians also celebrated the news of Bolsonaro's arrest, with some uncorking champagne bottles outside police headquarters.
"The message to Brazil, and to the world, is that crime doesn’t pay," Reimont Otoni, a Workers’ Party congressman, said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Potent Metaphor': Fire Forces Evacuation of UN Climate Conference
"Between the booths flooding and a fire breaking out in the Blue Zone, feels like maybe someone is trying to tell us something at COP30," said one journalist.
Nov 20, 2025
Delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Belém, Brazil were forced to evacuate after a fire broke out at the Hangar Convention and Exhibition Center on Thursday.
Brazilian government officials told BBC that the fire, which broke out early in the afternoon, is now under control.
BBC climate editor Justin Rowlatt, who was covering the conference, described seeing "huge columns of smoke rising up into the air through the hole that's been burnt in the top of the conference center," and said that there was "a huge panic, people have been running out of here."
#COP30 is on fire pic.twitter.com/VWAIhjVrqm
— Mike Szabo / @szabotage.bsky.social (@MikeSzaboCP) November 20, 2025
Imagens obtidas pelo @Metropoles mostram o momento exato do início do fogo na COP30.
Foi durante um evento da delegação africana. pic.twitter.com/5A6J3NAr3I
— Sam Pancher (@SamPancher) November 20, 2025
Officials do not yet know what caused the fire, but the Guardian reports that Brazilian Minister of Tourism Celso Sabino cast doubt on any suspicions that the blaze could have been set deliberately.
"You’d have to be a really awful person to set fire to a COP," he said.
Some climate activists argued that the fire at COP30 could be seen as an ill omen for the conference's outcome, especially given criticisms over the conference being packed to the brim with fossil fuel lobbyists.
US-based activist Jes Vesconte told the Guardian that the COP30 blaze was "a potent metaphor" for what's been happening at the conference.
"As capitalist fossil fuel companies, imperialist countries, and militarist powers block the talks here (or in abstentia in the case of the US)," Vesconte said, "they are putting profits over planet and people, profiteering off ecocide, genocide, and countless deaths, at the expense of all life on Earth, and pouring fuel on the fire of the burning planet."
Emily Pontecorvo, staff writer at Heatmap News, also picked up on the symbolism of the fire.
"A literal fire has erupted in the middle of the United Nations conference devoted to stopping the planet from burning," she wrote in a post on Bluesky.
Climate reporter Amy Westervelt noted that the fire wasn't the only disaster to befall COP30 this week.
"Between the booths flooding and a fire breaking out in the Blue Zone, feels like maybe someone is trying to tell us something at COP30," she observed.
A report released last week by the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition said it tallied the “largest ever attendance share” for fossil fuel lobbyists, dimming hopes of reaching a breakthrough agreement to curb emissions. In total, KBPO counted 1,602 fossil fuel lobbyists at the climate summit, representing roughly 1 out every 25 participants at this year's conference.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular