Global News Podcast - Supporters of Brazil's Bolsonaro stage huge demonstrations

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

A huge demonstration has taken place in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo to denounce the Supreme Court trial of the former president, Jair Bolsonaro. He's accused of plotting a failed military coup against President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after losing his bid for re-election nearly three years ago. He denies the charges. The court is widely expected to convict Mr Bolsonaro in the next few days. Also: Zelensky condemns "ruthless attack" after Russia hits main government building in Kyiv, and have you seen the Blood Moon - a total lunar eclipse? The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

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these are our main stories. Tens of thousands of supporters of the former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, have protested against his trial on charge. as a plotting a coup. President Trump says he's ready to move on to a second stage of sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine. The Israeli military has destroyed another tower block in Gaza City as it presses forward with its offensive. Also in this podcast, We are looking at a wonderfully dark red moon at the moment. It really is incredibly dim. The amount of light goes down is just bonkers because it's full.

moon and super deep a rare lunar eclipse. People across the world get to see a blood-red moon. But first, protesters have been out on the streets in cities across Brazil, days ahead of an expected verdict in the trial of the former right-wing president, Jaira al-Sanaro. Mr Bolsonaro stands accused of conspiring to cling on to power after losing the 22 election, leading to U.S. January the 6th-style attacks on government buildings and the presidential palace in Brazil in January 2023. Mr. Bolsonaro denies attempting to orchestrate a coup but acknowledges he did seek alternative ways of staying in power. Supporters of the former Brazilian leader, who's been under house arrest for a coup,

month have been bolstered by Donald Trump's support for Mr. Boltonaro. The U.S. President's actions include the imposition of hefty 50% tariffs on the country. The current left-wing president, Luis Inacio Lula de Silva, has said the country will take orders from no one. Our correspondent Ioni Wells has been out among the demonstrators, and she told Gary O'Donoghue more. There were huge protests on both sides of this debate around Brazil today. I was in Sao Paulo, first went to one of the anti-Boltenaro demonstrations where thousands of protesters were out on the streets, donning flags, including things like Trump, keep your paws off Brazil, Bolsonaro should be in prison. There was a big inflatable balloon of Bolsonaro wearing a prison outfit that was bobbing among the crowd.

Later went to one of Sao Paulo's biggest commercial avenues where there was there a rally of his support. They were all donning the Brazil football shirt, which has become a sort of de facto uniform, much to the dislike of left-wing Brazilian football fans of the right wing in Brazil. They were all shouting, as we heard in that clip there, Forre Morais, essentially meaning out Morais, who is the Supreme Court judge leading this coup trial against Bolsonaro. Many of them were calling for an amnesty for the former right-wing president. They believe that this is political persecution, something which has been echoed by Donald Trump, but his critics say that this is necessary, this is an important trial that will turn a page in Brazil's history

after years and years of division culminating in what they describe as an attempt to instigate a coup. The protesters have had a real shot in the arm from Donald Trump's support, haven't they, including I think Bolsonaro's son who's been lobbying in Washington. That's right. Bolsonaro's son Eduardo has been lobbying U.S. officials for months and months as he's been residing in Brazil, and it is culminated in Donald Trump imposing 50% tariffs on some Brazilian goods, citing Bolsonaro's trial as the justification for that, but also the U.S. has sanctioned that Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Morais, which many of the protesters, as I say,

today, were referring to. Interestingly, the response from Donald Trump has really sort of divided Brazil further. At the pro-Belsanaro rally that I was at today, there were many people draped in American flags, wearing Trump t-shirts and caps as well as Bolsonaro ones, in favor of the tariff, saying that this would maybe turn some of Bolsonaro's critics more in favor of him. But at the other rally that I went to, the one against Bolsonaro, many of the people there were donning signs saying things like, yeah, hands off Brazil. And interestingly, since Since the tariffs have been imposed, there has been a slight bounce in the polls here for the left, for the current president, Lula de Silva, because I think some Brazilians, even those who are not

necessarily particularly left wing, feel angry at Bolsonaro and his family for what they see as putting his political fortunes ahead of the economic benefit of the country. Ione Wells in Brazil. A record number of Russian missiles were fired at Ukraine on Saturday night, including the first strike on the government compound in Kiev. Smoke billowed from the cabinet offices as helicopters douse the flames. Sarah Rainsford sent this report on Sunday from Kiev. These scenes are becoming increasingly familiar across Ukraine because Russia has been escalating its attacks in recent weeks.

And what happened overnight and early this morning was that Russia launched some 800 drones in waves at this country and that is intended to overwhelm the air defences. Some of them are dummy drones, they're not real attack drones, but they still distract the air defences. They have to try to shoot them down, and as they're doing that, then the missiles get through. And that is what has happened again this morning.

The government building, we think, was hit by a drone, certainly the residential building, was hit by a drone, and there are casualties injured and dead across the country. Sarah Rainsford and Ukraine, hours after the heavy bombardment on the Ukrainian capital, The U.S. President Donald Trump said he's ready to move to a second stage of sanctioning Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. He was speaking to reporters as he left the White House and prepared to board a helicopter. Are you ready to move to the second phase of sanctions against Russia or punishing food?

It's tricky to hear over the sound of the helicopter, but the president does actually say, in response to the reporter's question, yes, I am. to our Washington correspondent, Aruna de Mukherjee, who's following the story. And I asked him, what are secondary sanctions and what can we make of the president's comment? We're actually not sure exactly what shape this intended or suggested action from President Trump will eventually take. He was very brief in that interaction. So there is an indication, but nothing beyond that at the moment. We have seen him threatening this for a while, but he hasn't really gone ahead with any plans. Now, in July, President Trump had said the U.S. would impose 100% secondary tariffs targeting Russia's remaining trade partners

if a peace deal with Ukraine was not reached within 50 days. Essentially, these secondary tariffs would mean countries which trade with Russia, like he has imposed 25% on India for buying Russian oil, they would be targeted. The intention is essentially to try and squeeze Russia's finances as the war goes on so that Moscow can't make any money by selling oil or anything else to these other countries. There has been criticism, though, that there's a lack of substance to these possible threats from the U.S. President. Yes, that Donald Trump hasn't actually gone ahead with these threats.

He is given a long rope to Russia, you know, without taking any action and limiting it only to these verbal threats. In fact, last month, you'd remember he had given ultimatums to Russia, warning that they must get to the talking table else face severe sanctions. But that deadline came and went without any action and had been overshadowed, at that point by the fact that both leaders Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump met in Alaska. But not just criticism for this, also for the way in which President Trump had welcomed President Putin in Alaska, with that red carpet, warm handshake, the smiles. Many were skeptical feeling that Vladimir Putin had actually ended up gaining much more than Donald Trump from that meeting and that he had managed to end his diplomatic isolation in a way, bought time perhaps without making any commitments or significant commitments,

and went on with his offensive on the ground in Ukraine. President Trump, however, had a very different view at that time. He said that they had made great progress at that meeting. But here we are, less than a month since, and we're looking at the possibility of further sanctions. Renaday, it's not just Donald Trump who's been speaking today. The U.S. envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has also issued comments today. Can you take us through what he said? Well, he highlighted Russia's latest attack and essentially said that it was a signal that Moscow does not want to use diplomacy to end the war.

He reiterated that the possibility of an escalation in this war was very much there and blamed Russia for that. And we also heard from the Trump administration by way of the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who was speaking to NBC News, Meet the Press. And he said that President Trump and Vice President Vance had spoken to European Union leaders and said that they were ready to put more economic pressure on Russia and that European partners must also do the same. Runaday Mukherjee in Washington. Next to Gaza.

The Israeli military has bombed another high-rise building in Gaza City. It's the third such block to be destroyed in as many days as the Israeli defence forces intensifies its assault on the territory's largest urban area. I spoke to our correspondent in Jerusalem, Weira Davies, and I began by asking him about the third building that's been destroyed. Well, this was, as you said, the third high-rise building in his many days to be blown up by the Israelis in Gaza City,

as with the previous cases an advance warning was given to the residence of the building but interestingly also to people in surrounding areas because there are hundreds of tents people have been displaced from other parts of Gaza during the course of this war and they were also warned to leave those tents

because of this impending airstrike on this building. The building interestingly said the Israelis was being used by Hamas but specifically for intelligence gathering purposes they didn't say if it was the entire high-rise building or just a couple of apartments within the building. Nonetheless, the whole thing has been destroyed. And as part of the

evacuation warning, which has given a couple of hours before it was blown up, people were again advised to head towards a so-called humanitarian safe zone called Almawesi, which is in the southern part of Gaza. But the UN has long said that Almawesi is nowhere near being described accurately as safe. It's been attacked several times in recent months, and people were killed in Armawasi in recent days. So I think this is the shape of things to come as Israel steps up its military action specifically against Gaza City itself. And all this, as we've been seeing huge protests in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? There's increasing not just international diplomatic pressure on Israel,

but also domestic pressure from the families and supporters of the disappeared. But also wider Israeli society now knows what an enhanced, intensified ground offensive in Gaza, city might entail. It will certainly, they argue, put the lives of the remaining hostages at risks. It also will exacerbate the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But Benjamin Netanyahu isn't listening to those critics, either domestically or internationally. And he is said tonight that offensive in Gaza will be stepped up. And he will, if he has to, he will annoy his critics and continue with this offensive. Weira Davis in Jerusalem. Next to Sudan, witnesses in the west of the country have accused the paramilitary rapid support forces

of forcibly collecting blood from captives seized as they tried to flee the city of Al-Fashar. One survivor told the Sudan Tribune newspaper that no medical precautions were taken and several people have died. Our global affairs reporter, Mbarisan Etirajan, has more details. The survivor claimed that Sudan's RSF

has been using the blood forcibly extracted to treat its wounded. There has been no independent verification, but the rebels have also been accused of indiscriminately killing hundreds of civilians, many simply for their ethnicity. Thousands of people are trying to flee Elfashah, the beseeched to capital of North Daffor, and last week a UN investigation said there was evidence both sides in the conflict. The RSF and the army were guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Both sides, however, have denied any wrongdoing. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Sudan's a civil war. Embarrassin Etirajun. Still to come.

I had the feeling that Carlo was special since he was more, because he was very generous and was not normal generosity. The mother of the Italian teenager Carlo Akutis, who's been made a saint by Pope Leo in the valley. America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.

I'm Tristan Redman in London. And this is the global story. Every weekday will bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Japan's long dominant Liberal Democratic Party is looking for a new leader after the Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced his resignation. Mr. Ishiba said he would remain in post until his successor was chosen, preempting a possible early leadership contest that was a.

expected on Monday. He said he'd made the decision after completing a trade deal with the United States. Now the negotiations concerning the U.S. tariff measures have reached a turning point, I thought this was the appropriate time to step aside and make way for the next Prime Minister. The announcement means fresh uncertainty for the world's fourth largest economy. Japan enjoyed static prices for years, but now shoppers are facing rising food bills and elsewhere Japan's all-important car industry is also facing the fallout from U.S. tariffs. All bad news for Japan's embattled Prime Minister. Richard Lloyd Perry, who's Asia editor for the Times of London newspaper and is based in Tokyo,

said the knives had been out for Mr. Ishiba over the past couple of days. It's not really a surprise. Shigeru Ishiba, since he came to power just under a year ago, in fact, has lost two elections in both the lower. and the Upper House. So his government coalition has been in a minority for nearly all of that time. So in some ways it's remarkable that he's survived this long. I mean, this is not a moment where Japan needs a kind of weak or confused government.

They've had to deal, of course, with Don Trump and his tariffs. On Friday, an agreement of sorts was made on that, although there's some room, it seems, for quibbling. that's the reason why he should be gave for his resignation this weekend. He said, we've got that out of the way, so now I can go. Last night, he was visited by senior figures in the party, who I think essentially have handed him the revolver and said, look, this can't go on.

At the same time, one of the reasons that there has not been more pressure for him to go before now is that the Liberal Democratic Party, which he's the leader, finds itself in a very dire situation. They don't, for the first time since their formation, over 50 years ago, they lack a majority in both houses of Parliament. So whoever becomes the next leader of the party, first become elected by the party,

then go to Parliament and cut deals with opposition leaders to get their support of being elected prime minister. Richard Lloyd Perry, Asia editor for the Times newspaper in Tokyo. One of the world's most prosperous countries, Norway, held a parliamentary election on Sunday, the first of two days of voting. But despite the country's wealth, voters' concerns have been dominated by the increasing cost of living and inequality. Adding to the intrigue are pressures from the United States and Russia. I heard more from the BBC's Risto Puyke.

It is basically between the centre-left and the centre-right. The centre-left is now in government, a social democrat-led government. And at first it looked like the current government might lose this election. The current Prime Minister, Jean Surgare, is very unpopular. But then things change around, and now it looks like they may hang on to power. There's a couple of things behind this. First of all, the arrival or return to Norway, of Jens Stoltenberg, the former NATO Secretary-General, who's very popular, and now the finance minister,

and also instability and insecurity. You have Trump, you have tariffs, you have Ukraine, you have Gaza, This kind of insecurity makes people probably opt for the known safe alternative. Domestically, the cost of living is an issue, isn't it? What's expensive in Norway? How is this all playing out? What's expensive? Things have gone up in the same way as in most other countries. So it's more to do with a kind of feeling of things are slipping downhill

and things aren't quite what they're used to. And this also goes for the other big question, which is the provision of services. health services, schools, social care. Norway has had a fantastic welfare state until now. It has had to make some cuts over the recent years, cuts with many other European countries made decades ago. And this has led to the same kind of feeling that we are losing, that the Norwegians are losing something that is essential part of their lives. I mean, of course, Norway doesn't operate inside a bubble, does it? How have geopolitics

played into this election? Interestingly, in a number of ways, normally Norwegian elections tend to be very Norwegian. But this time there have been a number of factors that have played into this. The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund gave up investments in a number of Israeli companies and an American company, Caterpillar, which is said, supported Israel's war on Gaza. This led to some senators in America saying that we will have to impose tariffs on Norway because it dared to do this kind of thing to an American company. And this has kind of led to a kind of rallying around the flag in Norway.

We will support our own country. We won't take these foreign threats. And what about concerns about Russia, about the Ukraine war? That's always in the background, and Norway has been one of the great contributors to supporting Ukraine. It's probably not so great as it is in, say, Poland or Finland, because Norway has always been more an Atlantic-facing country. It has a border with Russia, but it's a very, very short one. So Ukraine hasn't featured that much in the campaign. Ristopuka, Norway's official election results are expected on Tuesday.

One of the leading activists for the victims of Argentina's dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 has died. At the age of 106, Rosa Roizenblatt was the founding member of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, together with the better-known mothers of Plaza de Mayo, the grandmothers or abuelas, fought to find children that were stolen by the regime. During the military rule, around 30,000 people were killed. killed, almost all of them, civilians. Pregnant prisoners were kept alive until they gave birth and then murdered. Their babies were given away.

Ms. Reusenbilt's grandson was one of those missing children. She managed to find him decades later. Haley Cohen-Gilland is a journalist who's written a book about the grandmother's battle against Argentina's ruling generals. They had a sinister agenda, and that was to essentially purge the country of anyone whose ideas were contrary to Western and Christian civilization. Essentially, anyone left leaning. And as part of this purge, they abducted 500 women who happened to be pregnant at the time that they were taken, waited until they gave birth, and then stole their babies, placed them often

with military and police families to raise, and quietly disappeared the mothers of the newborns. So the abuelas formed at great risk to themselves at the height of the dictatorship when these disappearances were still happening all of the time. And they banded together with a simple mission of trying to find their stolen grandchildren and learn the truth about their children who had been disappeared. This was incredibly risky. So they undertook very daring detective missions and investigations. There was one anecdote about how they once had to smuggle very sensitive documents back from Brazil. And so they really leaned into their image as very kind of grandmothers. So they hid their notes within chocolate wrappers so that at the military

checkpoint at the airport, they were just swept through because they looked like little old grandmothers eating chocolates. So a lot of detective work, a lot of investigative research of birth certificates that looked like they might have hallmarks of falsified certificates. They also worked together to pioneer new forms of genetic testing. These were women generally that had given up their careers to raise their families, but they had a sense that science might provide answers and help them identify and reclaim their grandchildren. And so they went around the world trying to find a scientist who could help them

and ultimately pioneered an entirely new form of genetic testing that allowed them to reconnect with their grandchildren. Journalist Haley Cohen Gilliland. At the Vatican in Rome, Pope Leo has declared the first saint of the millennial generation. The Pope canonized an Italian teenager, Carlo Acutus, who died of leukemia in 2006, aged 15. He was a computer coder who built websites to spread Catholic teaching. More than a million people are estimated to have made a pilgrimage to the Italian town of Assisi, where Carlo's body lies preserved in wax. At the Rome ceremony, steeped in religious ritual, the Pope read out Carlo's name

along with others who are being canonized this Sunday. And having sought the council of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define blessed Pierre Giorgio Fasati and Carlo Acutis to be saints, and we enroll them among the saints, decree that they are to be venerated as such by the whole church. In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Monseigneur Anthony Figuredo, the guardian of Carlo Ocoutis's relics, spoke to the BBC about what this new saint means to young Catholics.

A young girl, a young lady, she came to the tomb of Carlo. So that's the main relic, I would say, where his remains are. She was a beautiful young lady for Mexico, a student of multimedia design, and there was a reporter here. And he said, well, what are you doing here? She said, Carlo gives me hope. I can't wear the sackcloth of Francis of Assisi 800 years ago, but I do wear jeans. And I do have a pair of sneakers. And that's why Carlo gives me hope is if you go and see Carlo in his two in Assisi, he's wearing jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie.

He looks just like one of us. ahead of Sunday's ceremony, Carlo Acutis' mother, Antonio Salzano, spoke to the BBC's William Crowley and told us a little bit more about her son. I had the feeling that Carlo was special since he was small, because he was very generous and was not normal generosity. Carlos, follow the example of St. Francis. He was very sensible to the poor. For example, when he was nine years old, we used to live in the center of Milano, around our

house there were a lot of beggars living in the street and carlo used to questioning himself i have everything i have a love of my parents and these people has nothing and so he starts to bring sleeping bags to leave blankets to bring food to these people carlo was somebody that if he met somebody in the street even if he didn't know he smiled say hello it was very different from the other what did his religion look like to you because he's He was using the Internet to pursue his faith interests for a long time. He had a special gift for computer programming, but he used the skills for evangelizing to do, for example, some exhibition. There is one he did over the Eucharistic miracles that are signed that God give,

where, for example, the host become flesh and the wine became blood. There were many, many miracles of this type. Carlo is really an instrument because also to touch the hearts of people is not easy. I mean, a human being cannot do this, only God grace can do this. Antonio Salzano, mother of the late Italian teenager Carlo Ocutis, who's been canonized by the Catholic Pope Leo in Rome. And now, people across much of the world have enjoyed the spectacle of a total lunar eclipse that saw the moon take on a deep red huge.

Hue. Known as a blood moon, the rare celestial show occurs as the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, casting its shadow across the lunar surface. Skywatchers in Asia, Australia, the Middle East and East Africa were among those to get the best views. The rest of Africa, Europe and small areas of the Americas, also got to witness some of the display. One of the best places to see this eclipse was East Africa. And, as it was happening, Gary O'Donohue spoke to an astronomer in Kenya, Daniel Chu Owen. He asked Daniel to describe what he could see. We are looking at a wonderfully dark red moon at the moment.

It really is incredibly dim. The amount of light that goes down is this bonkers because it's full moon. And at the same time, it's just really dim and super-duper red. Why is it red? It goes red because the light. from the sun is actually interacting with the Earth's atmosphere and the blue light gets scattered away and the red light sort of gets bent around

and so we're sort of seeing light that's coming through the atmosphere so it's almost like filtered so the atmosphere filtering out the light that's coming from the sun and turning that red colour. And tell us what's actually happening with these bodies with the sun and the moon. What's actually causing all this? What's happening? Yeah, so this is the technical term as a scissurgy

which is when you get three objects, all in a perfect line. So we've got the sun over one side, the Earth's now in the middle, and the moon is on the other side. So we're kind of in a perfect line with these three astronomical objects. Now, the same thing does happen with a solar eclipse, but it's kind of the moon and the Earth is switched around. And, of course, that's during the day. So that's when the Moon is in a perfectly in the middle between the Earth and the Sun. So this is one of those sort of alignments that causes a really incredible. visual treat.

Is it rare? I think every couple of years, you get a lunar eclipse every few years, but sometimes they can occur on the other side of the planet or in the ocean where nobody sees it. This one is particularly good for us in East Africa. I'm currently observing with about

100 other people in Nairobi, and we're getting some wonderful, as you may be able to hear in the background. And is it some, I mean, you're an astronomerania, you're a scientist, but lots of people have all sorts of superstitions about this moment, don't they? They do, and it's one of these things. It's a bit like an eclipse can be very weird.

You know, your whole, what's normal, suddenly goes out of the window. You know, you don't expect during a full moon for it to suddenly, well, it's not suddenly, but slowly, turn red. Great excuse for a party. It is, it is. It's a wonderful occasion. You know, it really focuses everybody or something which is, you know, you can't do anything about it. It's one of these natural phenomena. The Earth and the Moon will always continue moving.

at least for the next few million years in sort of similar ways. And, yeah, every now and again, you get a real treat of a visual occurrence. Pure enthusiasm from the astronomer Daniel Chu, Owen. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producers were Leah McSheffery and Mickey Bristow. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time, goodbye.