BRASILIA  –  Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has marked the second anniversary of an attack on government buildings with a celebration in the plaza where the violence took place. Last Wednesday, Lula – who underwent surgery last month to treat bleeding in his brain – appeared in the Three Powers Plaza in the capital Brasilia to denounce the riots of January 8, 2023, which he has likened to a coup against his presidency. He also used the occasion to project defiance in the wake of the attack, which saw thousands of protesters break into the presidential palace, Supreme Court building and Congress.

“Today is the day to say loud and clear: We’re still here,” Lula told his supporters. “We’re here to say that we are alive and that democracy is alive, contrary to what the January 8, 2023, coup plotters had planned.” The attack on January 8 came just seven days after Lula, a left-wing leader, had been inaugurated for a non-consecutive third term. Lula was not in the presidential palace at the time, nor was Brazil’s Congress in session. But the attack caused millions of dollars in damage, and dozens of law enforcement officers and protesters were injured. Many of the rioters had sought to spur a military uprising against Lula’s presidency.

Lula’s election had been narrow: He entered a run-off race against incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in October 2022 and emerged victorious by one of the tightest margins in Brazilian history. Just over 2.1 million votes separated the two candidates. But the far-right Bolsonaro had been spreading false claims well before the election that Brazil’s electronic voting system was vulnerable to fraud, and he refused to publicly acknowledge defeat in the wake of the vote. That spurred widespread protest, with Bolsonaro supporters blocking highways and attacking police headquarters in Brasilia. A bomb threat in the capital was even reported in the lead-up to the inauguration.

Bolsonaro left the country for Florida before Lula took power. He has since returned to the country, where he faces numerous legal cases and investigations. Some pertain to his role in spreading misinformation about the election, as well as his connection to the attack on January 8, 2023. In June 2023, Brazil’s electoral court ruled that Bolsonaro could not run for office again until 2030, as punishment for using government resources to sow distrust in the voting system.

And in November 2024, federal police officially accused Bolsonaro and 36 allies of plotting to overturn the 2022 election results. Prosecutor-general Paulo Gonet has yet to decide whether to formally charge the former president. Other probes have looked into whether Bolsonaro embezzled jewellery from Saudi Arabia while in office, or spread misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, last Wednesday, Bolsonaro asserted on social media that United States President-elect Donald Trump had invited him to Washington, DC, for his inauguration on January 20. “My lawyer, Dr Paulo Bueno, has already forwarded a request to Minister Alexandre de Moraes for me to get my passport back so that I can attend this honourable and important historical event,” Bolsonaro wrote. His passport was confiscated amid the ongoing investigations. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva takes part in a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the January 8 attack in Brasilia. (Reuters)

MYANMAR  –  A Japanese crime boss has pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell nuclear material from Myanmar to Iran along with drug trafficking and weapons offences, authorities in the United States have said. Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, a member of the yakuza, entered a guilty plea to six counts in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. He is set to be sentenced on April 9.

According to prosecutors, Ebisawa in 2020 told an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and a DEA source that he had acquitted a large quantity of thorium and uranium that he wished to sell. In response to Ebisawa’s repeated inquiries, the undercover agent agreed to help Ebisawa broker the sale of the nuclear materials to an associate who was posing as an Iranian general, prosecutors said. Ebisawa then offered to supply the undercover associate with plutonium that would be even “better” and more “powerful” than uranium for making nuclear weapons, according to prosecutors.

A powdery yellow substance that Ebisawa’s co-conspirators showed to undercover agents was later determined in a laboratory analysis to contain detectable quantities of uranium, thorium and plutonium, the Justice Department said. Ebisawa also conspired to broker the purchase of US-made surface-to-air missiles and heavy-duty weaponry to arm multiple ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, and to accept large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine as partial payment for the arms, according to prosecutors.

US officials said they conducted Ebisawa’s arrest and prosecution in cooperation with law enforcement partners in Indonesia, Japan and Thailand. “Today’s plea should serve as a stark reminder to those who imperil our national security by trafficking weapons-grade plutonium and other dangerous materials on behalf of organized criminal syndicates that the Department of Justice will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. Ebisawa, who was previously charged in 2022 with international drug trafficking and firearms offences, faces possible life imprisonment for the most serious of the charges. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Takeshi Ebisawa poses with a rocket launcher during a meeting with an informant and two undercover Danish police officers at a warehouse in Copenhagen. (Reuters)

SEOUL  – A prolonged period of uncertainty over the fate of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and a botched attempt to arrest him are giving oxygen to his backers and reviving support for his troubled party. Yoon, suspended from duties after his short-lived imposition of martial law on Dec. 3 and under criminal investigation for possible insurrection, has for weeks been holed up inside his hilltop residence in Seoul, guarded by a small army of personal security staff. In a National Barometer Survey poll released on Thursday, 59% of respondents wanted him arrested, something investigators are determined to do even though they failed last week after a widely televised six-hour standoff with his security force. Some 37% said arresting Yoon was excessive. A similar split fell in favour of the Constitutional Court, currently considering lawmakers’ decision to impeach Yoon, removing him permanently.

Analysts say the prospects of Yoon returning to office are unclear but the hiatus has emboldened his supporters, scores of whom braved sub-zero temperatures to gather near his residence on Thursday morning. The weeks since Yoon’s impeachment have also seen a recovery in support for his ruling People Power Party (PPP), which some analysts say shows signs conservatives are uniting to fight a possible presidential election later this year. “It seems that the attempt to arrest Yoon has reinvigorated conservatives,” said Mason Richey, a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.

He said that revival comes from both die-hard Yoon supporters, who back his reasons for declaring martial law, including unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud, and those less supportive of Yoon but concerned at the prospect of Lee Jae-myung, the liberal leader of the main opposition party, becoming president. “If the arrest effort had succeeded, these conservatives would have been defeated for a second time, following impeachment, and that reinvigoration would possibly have been snuffed out quickly. The more that arrest attempts fail, the stronger reinvigorated conservatives will feel,” said Richey. A Realmeter poll released last Monday put the PPP’s approval rating at 34.4%, up for three consecutive weeks. The main opposition Democratic Party, which commands a parliamentary majority and brought on Yoon’s impeachment vote, scored 45.2%.

Most pollsters in South Korea have stopped tracking Yoon’s approval ratings since he was impeached by parliament, although some fringe polls have shown a rise in his personal support in recent days. As he faces the prospect of another arrest attempt, his lawyers have remained defiant, alleging that the anti-corruption officers seeking his arrest do not have authority to investigate him for insurrection, even though a court has issued a warrant. The lawyers, however, told reporters on Thursday that the Constitutional Court’s decision on Yoon’s political future will be accepted. Rulings by the court, one of the two highest courts in the country along with the Supreme Court, cannot be appealed. “The president is still staying strong. He said he doesn’t want people to suffer and public officials to suffer from this, but he can’t accept illegal investigations,” lawyer Seok Dong-hyeon, Yoon’s confidant, told supporters outside his residence last Wednesday. (Reuters)

Photo: Pro-Yoon demonstrators hold U.S. and Korean flags as they take part in a rally in support of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol near his official residence in Seoul. (Reuters)