Avaaz members fought corrupt congressmen daily as they tried every trick in the book to kill, delay, amend, and weaken the bill, and won the day every time. The bill passed Congress, and already over 330 candidates for office face disqualification!

One Brazilian member wrote to us when the law was passed, saying:

I have never been as proud of the Brazilian people as I am today! Congratulations to all that have signed. Today I feel like an actual citizen with political power. — Silvia

Our strategy in Brazil was simple: make a solution so popular and visible that it can’t be opposed, and be so vigilant that we can’t be ignored.

This victory shows what our community can do – at a national level, in developing nations, and on the awful problem of corruption. Anywhere in the world, we can build legislative proposals to clean up corruption in government, back them up with massive citizen support, and fight legislators who try to block them.

France’s Le Monde called our “impressive and unprecedented petition” campaign a “spectacular political and moral victory for civil society.” And while this victory may be a first, we can make it the precedent for global citizen action.

Amazingly, our entire Brazil campaign was made possible by just a couple of Avaaz team members, serving over 600,000 Avaaz members in Brazil. The power of the Avaaz model is that technology can enable a tiny team to help millions of people work together on the most pressing issues. It’s one of the most powerful ways a small donation can make a difference in the world.

5.6 million of us are reading this email — if a small fraction of us donate just $3 or $5 per week, or 50 cents per day, the entire Avaaz team will be funded and we can even expand our work on corruption and a range of issues. Click below to become a Sustainer of Avaaz and help take our anti-corruption campaigning global:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/ficha_limpa_reportback/?vl

We’ve seen the heart-wrenching movies about street kids and desperate urban poverty in Brazil, and we know that across the world political corruption preys on our communities and saps human potential. In Brazil, our community has helped turn the tide and usher in a new era of transparent, accountable politics. Let’s seize the opportunity and begin to fight corruption everywhere it’s needed today.

e-mail received from  Ricken Patel – Avaaz.org

The event in Corpus Christi is a very special event for many Brazilians. Nes day we found a giant manifestation of joy faith and prayers.

This year will be marked by successive homage Brazilian people will pay to the late medium Francisco Cândido Xavier in the year of the centenary of his birth. Born on April 2, 1910 and christened with the name of Francisco de Paula Cândido, Chico Xavier became famous not only as a medium and one of the largest publishers in the history of Spiritualism, but as a true apostle of love and charity. Born in Pedro Leopoldo, metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, his parents were named Maria João de Deus and João Cândido Xavier. Educated in the Catholic faith, Chico had his first contact with the Spiritist Doctrine in 1927, during an obsessive process, which affected one of his sisters. He proceeded to study and develop their abilities, which, as he reported in a note in the book Parnassus from Beyond the Grave, only gained greater clarity at the end of 1931. Spiritism is is the belief that spirits of the departed are all around us and that the physical world is influenced by, and influences, the spirit world. Much of its main ideas are in The Spirits Book, which was compiled by Allan Kardec in France in the mid 19th century. The Spiritist Doctrine was taken to Brazil by Brazilians educated in France and there it took hold with the general population.

For the first time in more than 30 years, Brazil and the United States are going to sign a military agreement on Monday. This will be the major bilateral military cooperation agreement between the two countries since 1977, when Brazil was still a military dictatorship.  Earlier this week, a senior U.S. government official told The Associated Press that the agreement provides a broad framework for military cooperation but differs from military pacts Washington has with Colombia and its NATO partners. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.”It deals with military exchanges, everything from comparing military equipment to the exchange of students and instructors at military academies,” the official said. “There will be provisions for U.S. Navy ship visits and sharing lessons in peacekeeping.” According to Brazilian press reports, the agreement would create a “multinational, multifunction” base in Rio de Janeiro to monitor drug trafficking.  O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, which broke the story, did not specify what role the US military would play, but the article says that foreigners cannot command operations in Brazil.

Why Brazilians are so optimistic these days? The inhabitants of the largest economy of Latin America were always seen as having a very positive vision of life, buy now they seem to be overoptimistic. The well-known BBC presenter Robin Lustic went to Brazil to find out what makes them so happy: “For millions of them, the past few years have brought greater wealth, more jobs – and with them, it seems, more happiness. In four years’ time, Rio will host the World Cup final, and two years later, in 2016, the Olympic Games. What more could anyone want?” – says him, adding: “Over the past decade, average income for the least well-off in Brazil has risen by more than 70 per cent. For the richest, incomes have risen by just 11 per cent. As a result, the gap between the rich and the poor has narrowed. Between 2003 and 2008, more than 30 million people were lifted out of poverty.”