By Eloi Passot

Posted 3 hours ago, updated 1 hour ago

Relief operation in Seoul, October 30th. KIM HONG-JI / Portal

DECRYPTION – 153 people died in a mass movement in South Korea on Saturday. A very high human toll that can be explained by several factors.

“Carried away by the crowd jumping up and dancing…” sang Edith Piaf: a “mad farandole”, the crowd? Unfortunately, it can become a place of chaos and death as evidenced by the tragedy that occurred in Seoul, South Korea on Saturday October 29th. While thousands of people took to the streets for Halloween, a dense crowd formed on a steep street in Itaewon district. A huge onslaught then left at least 153 dead and 134 injured, ranking the event among the top three deadliest mass movements in the last 10 years. How can such a phenomenon be so deadly?

“Most of the time, when people die in a crowd, they’re not trampled on, they’re suffocated,” explains Mehdi Moussaïd, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin and a specialist in crowd behavior. The press initially spoke of “cardiac arrest” for Seoul. But this term is used by the authorities…

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Rosangela “Janja” da Silva, sociologist, 56, was one of the mainstays of the (victorious) election campaign of her husband Lula, who was twenty years her senior. “You gave me back joy and courage,” said Brazil’s new president. “And he made me discover a word called love”

They repeatedly kissed on the mouth in front of thousands of followers. They look at each other, they look for each other, they always smile like two teenagers in their first love. She, anyway, ubiquitous, with the inseparable bottle of fresh water that she offers her husband during his endless rallies. He is always grateful for this third woman, whom he met in old age and in the most difficult moment of his turbulent life: “I have suffered a lot over the years, Janja gave me back joy and courage, the desire to do things, in old age At the age of 77 I discovered a word called love, »said Lula, the newly elected President of Brazil, several times on stage in his third term.

Here’s the pink tale that sweetened the toughest, most violent election in Brazil’s history. Elder Lula loves the younger Rosângela, known as “Janja,” a 56-year-old sociologist who revitalized the revived former metalworker’s feelings. And – according to many – this also pushed him to seek revenge on the right wing who had sent him to prison for 580 days.

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According to the official version, they met right there, behind the bars of the Curitiba prison, where Lula was being held after convictions for corruption and money laundering (which were later overturned by the Supreme Court). She often visited him, she sent him letters every day (all of them are received, who knows if a love book will come out), and when he came out of captivity, she was there waiting for him.

They immediately moved to Sao Paulo, along with the two dogs, Paris and Resistência. And together they made Lula’s big comeback.

Since then he has always been in the front row. With him in Cuba, in full pandemic, for a kind of honeymoon that anticipated the wedding that took place only last May. Lula commented, “Honestly I don’t feel age, it hasn’t taken a toll on my body yet. To prove it, I got married again on May 18th. Oh the boy in here. ‘

In this long election campaign, Janja was always the protagonist, one step behind or next to her husband. Too much, according to his critics – and there would be many – on Lula’s staff.

Today she decides on the participants in meetings with her husband or the passengers who will accompany him on flights. He sometimes takes initiatives that have not been agreed with Labor Party (PT) officials, but these generally work very well.

Like the SuperLive evening show on the eve of the first round of voting at a theater in San Paolo packed with celebrities from the world of entertainment and culture praising Lula’s return. She appeared as one of the first on stage, dressed all in red, in very elegant dungarees, and “warmed up” the audience: “It’s time for love, the union of people, the hope of returning. It’s time for another Brazil to return, the Brazil of smiles, of music, of the Amazon, of indigenous peoples ». Then he looked up at Lula, who was sitting proudly on the gallery: “Amo um beijo”, dear kiss.

Even more discussed was the event where, in August, she presented herself alone in the Heliópolis favela in São Paulo, conquering the public, the people of the lowliest, with her passionate words. To the point that the newspaper Folha de San Paolo didn’t hesitate to rename it “Brazilian Evita”. In fact, many things separate Janja from the Argentine first lady, who died at the age of 33, three years before her husband Juan Domingo Péron was deposed in a military coup.

First, age and experience. The future “primeira dama” is not exactly first class, not even politically. Janja joined PT when she was 17, has a degree in Sociology from the Federal University of Paraná, an MBA in Social Management and Sustainability and has a long history of activism. The PT selected her for a position at Itaipu Binacional in 2003, where she worked for almost 15 years. From 2012 to 2017 he worked for Eletrobras in Rio. He has been retired for two years.

In short, very different from Lula’s ex-wife, the low-key Marisa Leticia, who died of a stroke in 2017. To the point that an evil tongue whispers that Janja was in Lula’s life long before Marisa Leticia disappeared.

Janja describes her environment as a sunny woman, very feminist, with a strong personality. An energy that has made the allies of the president-elect uneasy. Someone probably felt a little overshadowed by this lady with the smile always ready for the photographer’s click, who promises to take over the scene again.

October 31, 2022 (Change October 31, 2022 | 14:04)

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Lula victorious: “They tried to bury me alive and here I am” 7:02

(CNN Spanish) — After a long campaign and two rounds of voting, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected President of Brazil this Sunday and is preparing for his third term in office – after a first experience between 2003 and 2010 – while all Latin America wonders what the outcome will be largest and most important country in the region.

Lula da Silva was the candidate with the most votes in the first round on October 8, receiving 48.2% of the vote versus 43.2% for Jair Bolsonaro, the current president who was seeking re-election. The two faced off again this Sunday in the second round in which Lula da Silva clinched a narrow victory with 50.9% of the vote compared to 49.1% for Bolsonaro.

After confirming his victory, Lula da Silva spoke of a political “resurrection”, telling his supporters: “They tried to bury me alive and here I am.”

The turning point in Brazil: what does it mean for Latin America?

Political turns have become a trend in Latin America, particularly due to the strong impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on governments, and in the last elections in the region it was normal for the ruling party to lose and for the opposition to replace power: in this one year there was a change of government in Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica, in 2021 the same thing happened in Ecuador, Honduras, Peru and Chile as in 2020 in Bolivia and the Dominican Republic.

Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva speaks after his election as President of Brazil October 30, 2022 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Credit: Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)

Lula da Silva, a former union leader and leader of the Workers’ Party (PT), is an icon of the left and progressiveism across the region and will squarely replace Bolsonaro, a former military officer and far-right leader of the Liberal Party. It marks a remarkable about-face in a Brazil deeply divided by election results and where the PT is still marred by several corruption cases in recent years that have led to a prison sentence for Lula da Silva – the president-elect denies of committing crimes – and was then released after the conviction was overturned on procedural violations – the court ordered the case to be retried -.

However, this new left in Latin America, also represented by Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Chile’s Gabriel Boric, among others, differs from the first wave of progressive leaders in the early 2000s – sometimes referred to as part of a “socialism” of the 21st century “—and which included Lula da Silva.

A symbol of the new era, Lula da Silva won the elections, citing Geraldo Alckmin of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party as his vice-presidential candidate. The former governor of São Paulo, who ran against Lula da Silva in the 2006 presidential election and against Bolsonaro in 2018, is considered a conservative centrist who is currently offering a counterbalance to the PT.

The electoral strategy is not exactly new: Dilma Rousseff, protégé of Lula da Silva, who succeeded him as President of Brazil in 2011, brought in Michel Temer of the Brazilian Democratic Movement as vice-president for similar reasons, and he eventually became the enemy of Rousseff and his successor , when the president was removed from office in 2016.

Analysis of the second round of elections in Brazil 6:20

So Lula da Silva will take office amid great expectations from a large part of the population, but he will also do so in a world very different from that of 2003, with a deeply divided Brazil where food is a major concern and the pressure is growing on the Amazon, which is the symbol and central fight against climate change.

“From January 1, 2023, I will govern for the 215 million Brazilians, not just for those who voted for me. There are not two Brazilians. We are one country, one people, one great nation,” Lula da Silva said Sunday night.

The role of Brazil in the world

When Lula da Silva assumed his first government in 2003, he was given an orderly but unequal country, and his arrival coincided with the start of a period of high international commodity prices. This, in addition to an economic policy of cutting spending, paying off debt and helping to create jobs, meant that the Brazilian economy experienced years of high growth which, alongside social plans such as Zero Hunger, had a notable impact on poverty reduction.

At the same time, the 9/11 terrorist attacks distracted US attention from the region, and Brazil’s assertiveness grew tremendously, becoming part of the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). By 2011, Brazil was the sixth largest economy in the world, partly due to the decline of the wealthiest countries related to the Great Recession that began in 2009.

What challenge does Brazil face after the second round? 4:57

Lula da Silva was also critical of the international order in those years: he was a supporter of UN Security Council reform and responded to the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 by saying, “We cannot sacrifice the casino built for the American economy .

The Bolsonaro government, on the other hand, has inherited a Brazil that has just emerged from a long recession and has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. The country, battered by years of political and economic crisis, suffered its global weight, and its economy fell to 12th place.

The favorable conditions of 2003 are gone, but expectations remain that the new Lula da Silva government can restore growth, a very difficult target, and the region is watching the performance of its largest economy and market.

The Amazon, in the middle

During the first two governments of Lula da Silva and then Rousseff, Brazil was considered to be exemplary in terms of environmental policy, significantly reduced deforestation in the Amazon according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and committed to reducing CO2 emissions in 2015 by signing the Paris Agreement to be reduced by 37% in 2025.

Lula: It is necessary to rebuild this country 4:30

However, Bolsonaro’s rise to power caused a setback: both deforestation of the Amazon, which concentrates 19% of primary tropical forest, and carbon emissions rose amid government criticism of environmental regulations, according to INPE.

Bolsonaro’s actions led to the country’s relative isolation in the world, which was largely criticized by European Union countries, particularly France. Now, with Lula da Silva’s victory, there is an expectation that this will be reversed.

In his government program, Lula a Silva is committed to sustainable development, and in the case of the Amazon, he affirms that it is “absolutely essential” to put an end to deforestation. In addition, she proposes cracking down on illegal mining in the region and improving existing mining regulations.

The relationship with Argentina

Sharing a 1,263-kilometer border, Brazil and Argentina were mostly regional rivals in the 19th and early 20th centuries, even going to war between 1825 and 1828.

However, South America’s two largest have been top trading partners for decades and have important international cooperation agreements, notably the Brazil-Argentina Nuclear Materials Accounting and Control Agency (ABACC). the Argentine-Brazilian Center for Biotechnology (CABBIO) and the Argentine-Brazilian Center for Nanotechnology (CABN).

Brazil is Argentina’s top trading partner: In 2021, it was the first destination of its exports with a total value of $11,768 million, or 15.1% of the total, and the second largest destination of its imports – behind China – for total, according to Argentina’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs $12.441 million, or 19.7% of the total.

Argentina, meanwhile, is one of Brazil’s top trading partners, which exported products for $8.57 billion, or 4% of the total, in 2020, making it a key destination behind only China and the United States. Meanwhile, Brazil imported Argentine products for US$7,670, or 4.78% of the total in the same year, behind China, the United States and Germany.

However, trade between the two countries has shrunk in recent years due to economic stagnation in both countries and growth in China. According to a document from Argentina’s Ministry of Productive Development, Brazil accounted for between 25% and 26% of Argentina’s total trade in the early 2000s, while by 2020 it had fallen to 17%.

Furthermore, Argentina is currently ruled by President Alberto Fernández, Néstor Kirchner’s former chief of staff, and Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, so Lula da Silva’s victory also means the reunion of old allies in Brasilia and Buenos Aires.

The Mercosur

Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay are the founding partners of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), a regional integration process that began with the 1991 Treaty of Asunción, according to its website.

Mercosur was expanded to include Venezuela – later suspended for violating democratic principles – and in 2019 the bloc made headway on a historic deal with the European Union, ratification of which has been stalled by ongoing differences between different countries.

The bloc has been in crisis recently: Bolsonaro has been very critical and after his win in 2018 said he would try to make it more flexible and questioned his future. While Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, President of Uruguay, created tensions within Mercosur by announcing his intentions to negotiate a trade deal with China outside the bloc.

What challenges does Lula da Silva face in Brazil? 1:57

The relationship with Mercosur was instead one of the pillars of Lula da Silva’s first two governments and there are expectations that this new government will seek to keep the bloc healthy.

The situation in Venezuela

Brazil shares a 2,137-kilometer border with Venezuela, and during the administration of Bolsonaro, a historical critic of Chavismo, relations between the two countries faltered and the border was temporarily closed in 2019.

Bolsonaro strongly supported then-US President Donald Trump’s policy of isolating the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and recognizing Juan Guaidó, the opposition-controlled National Assembly President-elect in 2015, as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela.

Lula da Silva, on the other hand, maintained good relations with other presidents of left- or center-left parties in the region, sometimes grouped under the banner of “21st-century socialism”, most notably Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor in Venezuela. but also with Fidel Castro in Cuba, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina.

While support for Guaidó is weakening, especially after Joe Biden’s victory in the United States, Lula da Silva is expected to try to stabilize the situation with Venezuela.

With information from Camilo Rocha, Marcia Reverdosa and Rodrigo Pedroso.

The house where Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) lived in Sant’Agata di Villanova, near the northern Italian town of Piacenza, is not due to be closed due to ruin. The new Italian culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, said today. “Villa Verdi is fundamental to the identity of Italians and therefore must remain protected and open to the public,” said the minister.

After a long series of legal battles and family squabbles, the director of the small but bustling museum, Angiolo Carrara Verdi, the composer’s direct heir, was forced to leave the village following a decision by the civil court. This ended a 20-year legal battle between the composer’s heirs. Yesterday was the last day the museum was open, reported the daily newspaper “La liberta”.

IMAGO/imageBROKER/Martin Jung

The Supreme Court had ruled that the inheritance of Alberto Carrara Verdi, who died in 2001 and heir to the composer, should be divided equally between his three children. However, as none of the three can take over the actions of the others, the village must be sold with the museum. The court will appoint an administrator to look after the museum. According to the Minister of Culture, Carrara Verdi expects the State itself, which has the right of preference, to assume ownership.

Verdi lived in the village for 50 years, which holds countless memories of the composer’s life and his work. The museum’s roof needs an urgent renovation. The facade also needs to be repainted and the six-hectare park needs maintenance work.

More than 80% of the residents of the capital Kyiv are without water and 350,000 houses without electricity; Russians confirmed the attacks and said targets had been hit

Portal/Gleb Garanich
Kyiv without electricity after bombing of infrastructure facilities

A massive attack on power plants in several regions of the Ukraine left 80% of the capital’s residents Kyiv without water and 350,000 households without electricity. The bombing was confirmed by the troops Wladimir Putin. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, “All attacks have achieved their objective. All designated targets were hit.” Five explosions were heard in Kyiv on Monday. “Russian terrorists have again launched a massive attack on power plants in several regions,” said an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency Kyrylo Tymoshenko. According to Prime Minister Denys Chmygal, “missiles and drones hit 10 regions and damage 18 facilities, most of them related to the energy system”. “Hundreds of places” are without electricity “in seven regions” of Ukraine, he added. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, “more than 50 cruise missiles” were fired in Ukraine “by planes” from the northern Caspian Sea and Russia’s Rostov region. Wreckage from one shot down by Kiev forces landed in a Moldovan village on the Ukrainian border, Chisinau said, reporting material damage but no casualties. The Russian attacks “pose a direct threat to the security of neighboring countries,” Ukrainian diplomacy spokesman Oleg Nikolenko criticized on Facebook, urging Kyiv’s allies to provide “modern missile and antiaircraft equipment.” Despite the constant attacks registered especially since Saturday, when Russia suspended participation in the export of Ukrainian grain, the President of Ukraine said, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, promised that widespread Russian attacks on power plants would not break Ukrainians’ spirits. “The bombardment will not break us hearing the enemy’s anthem in our country is scarier than the enemy’s missiles in our sky. We’re not afraid of the dark,” he said.