Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega’s chief of staff Marcel Fiche has resigned, his office has announced following accusations he received bribes from a contractor.
The magazine Epoca reported two weeks ago that Fiche and his technical advisor Humberto Alencar, who also has quit, allegedly received 60,000 reais (US$25,700) in kickbacks from a communications company in return for an inflated contract with the Finance Ministry.
Mantega immediately asked the Justice Ministry and the federal police to investigate the allegations.
”I have asked Minister Guido Mantega that I not return to Cabinet at the end of my vacations,” Fiche said in a statement late on Friday, denouncing the allegations as “lies,” adding that he wanted to contribute to a smooth and rapid probe.
“I can say in all tranquility that we conducted the bidding process for hiring this company for the ministry’s press office with total zeal and respect for public service,” he added.
The two officials had been put on leave after the scandal broke. Alencar who was responsible for overseeing the contract was reported to have approved extra hours and ghost employees to justify the amount paid by the ministry.
A number of ministers have been forced to leave their posts amid accusations of corruption since Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff assumed office in 2011.
In one recent case, a member of parliament was jailed, along with several senior officials of the ruling Workers Party, after being found guilty of taking part in a vast vote-buying scheme in the Congress during the administration of former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese