Confidence and exuberance at Lula da Silva rally in Brazil – ‘We are in a battle and we are going to win’
Music, cheering, noise, chaos, and above all – dancing.
There is nothing quite like being on the Brazilian election trail.
Exuberant is the only word I can think of.
We joined the supporters of Lula da Silva in Sao Bernardo do Campo, a dormitory town on the edge of Sao Paulo city.
Enormous sound systems blared out the favourite Lula anthems, and people danced and cheered and sang along.
They came in their thousands to see the man they consider to be a saviour from the right-wing presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula, a former president, is bidding to stage a remarkable comeback to the top of the political ladder.
Arrested in 2018 on corruption charges, later quashed, he was consistently the most popular political leader in the world with approval ratings in the 80-90% range during his time in office from 2003 to 2011.
Many thought he could capture the presidency in the first round last Sunday, and he didn’t.
But, worse for both Lula and his party, President Bolsonaro confounded the polls and closed the gap to a handful of points.
Now everything is to play for in the days leading up to the decisive second round on 30 October.
Despite that exuberance on the streets, Lula’s team were shocked by how much the president made up ground. But the people we talked to in the crowds say they still believe in their man.
“We’re going to fight for him. I’m fighting,” says 61-year-old Maria Francisca Neves.
Maria
Maria has travelled from the Jardim Limpao favela, where she lives. She is unemployed and says she and many others are struggling to survive.
“We want them to fight for us, for us to be able to eat meat again, to have our table full of food, for us to have a glass of milk to drink in the morning and be able to give that to our children, to be able to go to university…”
“We are in a battle, and we are going to win. Lula will get there, I have faith in God, I thank God!” she added passionately.
Erivan (left)
Another supporter, Erivan Paulino de Souza, said he would have preferred Lula had won in the first round to put an end to the tension.
“But everything we have achieved in our lives has been through fighting – we go and conquer, nothing has ever been easy for us,” he explained.
“This is not the first election that has gone to the second round, and so we will fight until the end.”
Lula da Silva
They all waited in the blistering heat for hours when, finally, he appeared from the side door of the union building on the street where he was arrested in 2018.
He was helped onto the back of a truck, joined by politicians from his Workers’ Party.
And so began a chaotic caravan through the streets of the town.
This is the first time Lula has been back on the campaign trail since he failed in that first round, and they loved it.
The streets were jammed with supporters, waving flags, and dancing. Many were trying to touch Lula or to at least get his attention.
A huge cheer erupted when the would-be president began taking photos of the crowd with a professional camera.
Almost certainly a move to underline his basic campaign message that he is for the people and part of the people.
He has certainly aged and is not the energetic president of the past, but he still shows the touch of the ‘man of the people’ which has proved so popular for so long.
The real question though is whether his type of politics can appeal to an electorate that is already terribly divided.
Followed by thousands, we watched as Lula and his entourage and political colleagues wound their way through the streets.
Shoppers and shop owners watching on as this loud parade made its way to a nearby square.
Most held their hands in the air with their thumb and index fingers in the shape of an L.
L for Lula, they say, and L for love.
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Once the caravan got to the square, the 76-year-old addressed the crowd, promising not to give up, and warning against the spread of misinformation.
“You know that our adversary’s speciality is to lie, seven or eight lies a day through fake news, through zap (WhatsApp), through any other way to talk to people.
“In the next 24 days, you have to be alert, you need to know how to tell truth from the lies,” he said.
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‘Too poor to vote’ in Brazil election
Presidential elections are often won by the candidate with momentum.
In truth President Bolsonaro grabbed that momentum when he drew near to his adversary.
Lula needs new momentum now. And he and his team hope that this is the start.
A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.
These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.
The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.
Israel Gaza map
Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.
Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.
Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.
Israel says no famine in Gaza
Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.
“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.
Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”
Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.
Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.
“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.
The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.
Palestinians struggle to get aid at a community kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: AP
The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.
The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.
But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.
The Ukrainian suspected of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines had served in Ukraine’s Secret Service and in the Ukrainian Army’s special forces, Sky News understand.
Serhii K., 49, was arrested in northern Italy on Thursday following the issuance of a European arrest warrant by German prosecutors.
It is not known whether he was still serving at the time of the pipeline attack in 2022 and Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the explosions.
According to sources close to the case, the suspect has been found in a three-star bungalow hotel named La Pescaccia in San Clemente, in the province of Rimini.
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Man arrested over Nord Stream attacks
When military officers from Italy’s Carabinieri investigative and operational units raided his bedroom, he didn’t try to resist the arrest.
The hotel’s employees have been questioned, but no further evidence or any weapons were found, the sources added.
Serhii arrived on Italy’s Adriatic coast earlier this week, and the purpose of his trip was a holiday. He was found with his two children and his wife.
At least one of the four people within his family had a travel ticket issued in Poland. He crossed the Italian border with his car with a Ukrainian license plate last Tuesday.
He was travelling with his passport, and he used his real identity to check into the hotel, triggering an emergency alert on a police server, we have been told.
A satellite image shows gas from the Nord Stream pipeline bubbling up in the Baltic Sea. File pic: Roscosmos via Reuters
After the arrest, he was taken to the Rimini police station before being moved to a prison in Bologna, the regional capital, on Friday.
Deputy Bologna Prosecutor Licia Scagliarini has granted the German judicial authorities’ requests for Serhii’s surrender, but Sky News understands the man told the appeal court that he doesn’t consent to being handed over to Germany.
He also denied the charges and said he was in Ukraine during the Nord Stream sabotage. He added that he is currently in Italy for family reasons.
While leaving the court, he was seen making a typical Ukrainian nationalist ‘trident’ gesture to the reporters.
The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the Bologna appeal court is set to decide whether Serhii will be extradited to Germany or not. He will remain in jail until then.
In Germany, he will face charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures.
German prosecutors believe he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.
Serhii and his accomplices are believed to have set off from Rostock on Germany’s north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack.
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The explosions severely damaged three pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Europe. It represented a significant escalation in the Ukraine conflict and worsening of the continent’s energy supply crisis.
According to a US intelligence report leaked in 2023, a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack. Yet, no group has ever claimed responsibility.
Spare pipes for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. File pic: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer
Sky News understands Genoa’s Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy has requested their colleagues in Bologna to share the information related to Serhii.
Anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating another alleged sabotage linked to the Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Seajewel, which sank off the port of Savona last February.
On Thursday, they asked an investigative police unit to figure out whether there is a link between that episode and the Nord Stream attacks.
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