Brazilian Liberal Party lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of indicted former President Jair Bolsonaro and South American representative for CPAC, took a leave of absence from Congress today and announced he will remain in the United States to escape "political persecution" and pressure U.S. officials to impose sanctions against Alexandre de Moraes—one of Brazil's 11 Supreme Court Ministers—in an attempt to keep his father out of jail.

It is no secret that Eduardo Bolsonaro has been close to Steve Bannon and other key figures in Donald Trump's circle since 2018. Similarities in billionaire-funded social media tactics used by Trump and the Bolsonaros are living testament to this, and the closeness that Eduardo has to leaders of the American far right is also demonstrated by his presence at the January 5, 2021, "war council" meeting in Washington, hosted by Mike Lindell on the eve of the U.S. Capitol invasion.

Eduardo Bolsonaro immediately swung into action, contacting friends in the Republican Party and private sector alike. The next day, Rumble and Truth Social filed a frivolous lawsuit against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who was in charge of the investigation against his father. On February 24, Republican Congressman Rich McCormick released a public letter to President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in which he called for punitive actions against Moraes, including "Magnitsky sanctions, immediate visa bans, and economic penalties."

On February 27, Workers' Party Congressmen Lindbergh Farias and Rogério Correia filed a criminal complaint with the Attorney General's Office against Eduardo Bolsonaro for conspiring against Brazil with members of a foreign government.

"The individual in question, completely disconnected from reality and acting against Brazil's national interests, is encouraging a foreign government to impose retaliatory measures against his own country and one of the justices of the Supreme Federal Court," reads a section of the complaint. Judging him a probable flight risk due to his network of connections in the American far right, they requested that the Federal Police confiscate his passport. Time has proven them correct, but the police did not act quickly enough.

On March 13, the net began to tighten around Jair Bolsonaro as the Attorney General's Office officially upheld the indictment against Bolsonaro and his cronies, after a procedural period in which they were allowed to present their defense arguments. The Supreme Court then set March 25 as the date for the final review of evidence before formally setting a trial date.

This put Eduardo Bolsonaro in a quandary. With a complaint already filed against him for illegally abusing the power of his office to lobby for intervention in Brazil's internal affairs by a foreign government—a crime so serious that, in theory, it could result in charges of treason—he had to choose between keeping his position as Congressman and complying with national security laws, or renouncing and moving to Florida, like so many right-wing Latin American politicians before him.

Bolsonaro is claiming his leave will be temporary, but going on leave of absence will not shield him from criminal prosecution for abuse of authority, crimes against the judiciary, and violation of national security laws. Like all Members of Congress, he enjoys a certain level of parliamentary immunity, but can still be investigated and tried by the same Supreme Court that he has been publicly attacking for the past five years. So if, as he announced on his social media today, his plan is to stay in the U.S. to find some way to "punish Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes," he will probably have to stay there for a long time. The question is, how much damage can he do to Brazil’s national sovereignty while he’s up there?

WASHINGTON/HOUSTON March 24 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela will pay a 25% tariff on any trades made with the United States. This "secondary tariff" will take effect on April 2, Trump said in a Truth Social post. Trump is imposing the move because, he said, Venezuela has sent "tens of thousands" of people to the United States who have a "very violent nature."

Earlier this month, Trump issued a 30-day wind down of a license that the U.S. had granted to Chevron (CVX.N), opens new tab since 2022 to operate in sanctioned Venezuela and export its oil, after he accused President Nicolas Maduro of not making progress on electoral reforms and migrant returns. Trump earlier this month invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to justify the deportation of alleged members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua without final removal orders from immigration judges.

China, which already has been the subject of U.S. tariffs, is the largest buyer of Venezuela's oil, the OPEC member's main export. In February, China received directly and indirectly some 503,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Venezuelan crude and fuel, which represented 55% of total exports. Tariff impositions in China to imports of certain types of Venezuelan oil in past years led to a decline in the volume of Venezuelan crude received by Chinese buyers, which ultimately forced state company PDVSA to widen price discounts to continue sellin to its most important market.

Spain, Italy, Cuba and India are other consumers of Venezuelan oil. U.S. imports of the oil are set to end in early April unless Trump extends the wind down. There was no immediate response from Maduro's government to a request for comment.

Levies by China in past years on imports of certain types of Venezuelan oil led to a decline in the volume of Venezuelan crude received by Chinese buyers, which ultimately forced state company PDVSA to widen price discounts to continue selling to its most important market.

In extraordinary blunder top Trump cabinet members added Atlantic editor to chat discussing strikes on Houthis.

Senior members of Donald Trump’s cabinet have been involved in a serious security breach while discussing secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.

In an extraordinary blunder, key figures in the Trump administration – including the vice-president, JD Vance, the defence secretary Pete Hegseth, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group.

Signal is not approved by the US government for sharing sensitive information.

Others in the chat included the Trump adviser Stephen Miller; Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles; and the key Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.

The breach was revealed in an article published on Monday by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, who discovered that he had been included in a Signal chat called “Houthi PC Small Group” and realising that 18 other members of the group included Trump cabinet members.

In his account, Goldberg said that he removed sensitive material from his account, including the identity of a senior CIA officer and current operational details.

The report was confirmed by Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the national security council, who told the magazine: “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

Hughes added: “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”

Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he was unaware of the incident. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic,” Trump said.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, later released a statement saying: “President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.”

The incident is likely to further raise concerns over the Trump administration’s trustworthiness with intelligence shared by erstwhile allies – not least as Hegseth boasts at one stage of guaranteeing “100 percent OPSEC – operations security” while a celebrated journalist is reading his message.

The discussions seen by Goldberg include comments from Vance, who appeared unconvinced of the urgency of attacking Yemen, as well as conversations over what price should be expected of Europeans and other countries for the US removing the threat to a key global shipping route.

Security and intelligence commentators in the US described the breach of operational security as unprecedented – both for the use of a commercial chat service and for the inclusion of Goldberg.

In the US military, the highest political echelon and intelligence services operate under strict rules for communication of classified material and for the discussion of issues concerning operational security where lives and outcomes could be compromised by disclosure.

While Signal is regarded as a secure encrypted chat service, its weakness is that phones on which it is installed can themselves be vulnerable.

Among those aghast at the breach was the Democratic representative Pat Ryan, an army veteran who sits on the House armed services committee who described it using the second world war-era epithet “Fubar” – meaning “fucked up beyond all recognition”.

“If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.”

Shane Harris, a longtime national security reporter – formerly of the Washington Post and now with the Atlantic – wrote on BlueSky: “In 25 years of covering national security, I’ve never seen a story like this.”

Goldberg writes that he was initially dubious about whether the messages might be some kind of foreign disinformation operation, but became convinced they were genuine both because of the language and positions presented and because the plan discussed coincided with an actual attack on Yemen.

One striking exchange involved Vance and Hegseth making disparaging remarks about Europe.

“The account identified as ‘JD Vance’ addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: ‘if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,’” Goldberg wrote. (The administration has argued that America’s European allies benefit economically from the US navy’s protection of international shipping lanes.)

Goldberg continues: “The user identified as Hegseth responded three minutes later: “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.

“Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”

In reality, about 20 countries are involved in the mission to protect shipping from Houthi attacks including British warships.

As Goldberg became aware of the attack on Yemen taking place, he recorded how he went back to the Signal channel:

“‘Michael Waltz’ [US national security adviser] had provided the group an update. Again, I won’t quote from this text, except to note that he described the operation as an ‘amazing job.’’’

A few minutes later, [another individual wrote]: “A good start.”

Not long after, Waltz responded with three emojis: a fist, an American flag and fire. Others soon joined in, including “MAR”, [Marco Rubio]. He wrote: “Good Job Pete and your team!!” and “Susie Wiles”. She texted: “Kudos to all – most particularly those in theater and CENTCOM! Really great. God bless.”

Last January the royals spent DKK 6.5 mln. on the bloodless transfer of power from the aging queen Margrethe Glücksburg to her son and hand-picked successor Frederik Montpezat. Most of the money comes from an extra one-time transfer from the state to cover the succession. In the Nordic hermit kingdom there is always extra money for celebrating a spoilt nepo-baby, unlike for education or healthcare.

The money was spent on such things as severance payments, office redecoration, new uniforms and on changing the design of monograms, orders and medals. The amount does not cover the money spent by other governmental bodies during the transition, such as the cost of security at public appearances or the cost of redesigning coinage.

The Kremlin demands the clearest, most concrete, verifiable, and enforceable guarantees before the conflict can be resolved. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that his country refused to approve a trilateral joint statement on Monday following negotiations between the U.S., Russian, and Ukrainian delegations in Riyadh.

“The U.S. wanted to issue some kind of joint statement, but we explained once again that both presidents… agreed to move forward in such a way that no more baseless documents would be approved,” he said, referring to the phone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump that took place a week ago.

“We first agreed that, based on the agreement between Putin and Trump, U.S. and Russian experts would travel. But it seems that Washington is so eager to act that they decided something had to be formalized as soon as possible, so they invited the Ukrainians, who arrived a day earlier,” Lavrov said.

“It is no big secret that… the Americans wanted, in some way, to place the Ukrainians and Russians in adjacent rooms and organize shuttle diplomacy between them,” he added, insisting that Moscow wants Washington to ensure that Kyiv fulfills its commitments when signing a document with the opposing side in the conflict.

Lavrov emphasized that Russia demands “the clearest, most concrete, verifiable, and enforceable guarantees and mechanisms possible” before the Ukrainian conflict can be resolved. More specifically, Russia demanded “clear guarantees” from Ukraine to resume the implementation of the Black Sea Initiative, a truce that was in effect between June 2022 and July 2023 and was the main topic discussed in the Saudi capital.

“Our position is simple: we cannot trust that person’s word,” Lavrov said, referring to President Zelensky. Clear guarantees, he added, “can only result from an order from Washington to Zelensky and his team to do it this way and not any other way. I believe our American partners understood our message,” he concluded.

“There is no justification or excuse of any kind to validate the torture of Salvadoran and Venezuelan prisoners in Salvadoran prison hells,” reads the article. Dominican jurist Dr. Ramón Antonio (Negro) Veras, in his article “The Hell of Bukele’s Prisons,” analyzes the inhumane conditions to which Salvadoran and Venezuelan prisoners are subjected in El Salvador’s prisons.

Negro Veras condemns the prison policies of Bukele and Donald Trump, denouncing abuses, humiliations, and human rights violations. Below is the full article:

1. Cruel and inhumane behavior, savagery, is being implemented in El Salvador’s prisons in plain sight, as if it were nothing.

2. The infliction of harm upon another’s body, cruelty, is being carried out as if it were part of our peoples’ culture.

3. No one is prepared to resign themselves to enduring physical or moral harm. Enduring or tolerating such treatment is not part of a normal way of life.

4. What is happening to Salvadoran and Venezuelan prisoners in these modern-day versions of ancient Roman ergastula (slave prisons) is intolerable in the 21st century.

5. The treatment of Salvadoran and Venezuelan prisoners is an offense to all humanity. It is a combination of vindictiveness, sadism, and brutal atrocity.

6. Forcing a shackled man to kneel to have his head shaved is an atrocity, a bestial act, pure barbarism.

7. Witnessing men forced to comply with degrading commands diminishes civilized humanity and contradicts our aspiration to live in a world of happiness and equal opportunity.

8. The degradation and mortification of others for being undocumented should revolt any sensitive person opposed to ignominy.

9. In Bukele’s prisons in El Salvador, there are nationals—victims of the system—and Venezuelans who lack opportunities in their homeland’s labor market.

10. The treatment of impoverished humans labeled as antisocial in Salvadoran prisons must be rejected by all who oppose dehumanization in any form.

11. Humiliating, degrading, ignominious, and infamous rulers like Bukele and Donald Trump must not be allowed to belittle, mistreat, insult, or wound the dignity of human beings.

12. The atrocities committed against prisoners under Bukele and Donald Trump in Salvadoran prisons must be denounced, rejected, and unequivocally condemned.

13. The hateful and cruel methods employed against prisoners in El Salvador must be censured as inhumane, disapproved for violating human rights, and repudiated for wounding the noblest sentiments of our peoples.

14. There is no justification or excuse of any kind to validate the torture of Salvadoran and Venezuelan prisoners in these Salvadoran prison hellholes.

15. Under no circumstances are horror, humiliation, atrocities, abominations, sinister acts, or repulsive methods acceptable to subjugate human beings.

16. Never, ever, can humane principles be established in society through cruel measures. It is absurd to think happiness can be built at the expense of others’ misery.