In an opinion piece published in the New York Times, Lula dismissed the description by US President Donald Trump of the trial as a “witch hunt”, saying that it was a “historic decision which safeguard’s our institutions and the democratic rule of law”.

The Brazilian leader said he had written the essay to establish an open and frank dialogue with US President Donald Trump, who has imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports.

Lula called the tariff hike “not only misguided but illogical”.

Relations have been tense between the US and Brazil in recent months, in stark contrast to the times when Trump’s counterpart in Brazil was Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro often expressed his admiration for Trump, who hosted him at his Mar-a Lago resort in 2020.

Lula, a left-wing leader, who is known for his direct tone, did not mince his words in his New York Times editorial.

He said that over the past 15 years the US had “accumulated a surplus of $410bn (£302bn) in bilateral trade in goods and services”, adding the decision to impose the tariffs could only be political.

“The US government is using tariffs and the Magnitsky Act to seek impunity for former President Jair Bolsonaro,” Lula wrote, referring to the sanctions which the US has imposed on the Supreme Court justice who led the trial against Bolsonaro.

The trial concluded on Thursday when four out of the five Supreme Court justices on the panel tasked with judging Bolsonaro found him guilty of all five charges he was facing. A simple majority was needed to convict him.

Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years and 3 months in prison – a sentence which his lawyers say they will appeal against.

Trump said he found the verdict “very surprising” and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US would “respond accordingly to this witch hunt”.

In his New York Times article, Lula insisted the trial was “not a ‘witch hunt'”.

“The judgement was the result of proceedings carried out in accordance with Brazil’s 1988 Constitution, enacted after two decades of struggle against a military dictatorship,” he wrote, reminding readers that Brazil’s democracy was restored in 1985 after 20 years of military rule.

Lula also dismissed the Trump administration’s accusations that Brazil’s justice system had targeted and censored US tech firms.

The Brazilian president said that his country’s courts were right to regulate the internet and that US firms were not being treated unfairly.

He concluded his essay by addressing President Trump directly, telling his US counterpart that Brazil remains open to negotiating “anything that can bring mutual benefits”, but warned Trump that “Brazil’s democracy and sovereignty are not on the table”.

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people – including world leaders – at the conference in November.

The state government touts the highway’s “sustainable” credentials, but some locals and conservationists are outraged at the environmental impact.

The Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.

Along the partially built road, lush rainforest towers on either side – a reminder of what was once there. Logs are piled high in the cleared land which stretches more than 13km (8 miles) through the rainforest into Belém.

Diggers and machines carve through the forest floor, paving over wetland to surface the road which will cut through a protected area.

Claudio Verequete lives about 200m from where the road will be. He used to make an income from harvesting açaí berries from trees that once occupied the space.

“Everything was destroyed,” he says, gesturing at the clearing.

“Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”

He says he has received no compensation from the state government and is currently relying on savings.

He worries the construction of this road will lead to more deforestation in the future, now that the area is more accessible for businesses.

“Our fear is that one day someone will come here and say: ‘Here’s some money. We need this area to build a gas station, or to build a warehouse.’ And then we’ll have to leave.

“We were born and raised here in the community. Where are we going to go?”

His community won’t be connected to the road, given its walls on either side.

“For us who live on the side of the highway, there will be no benefits. There will be benefits for the trucks that will pass through. If someone gets sick, and needs to go to the centre of Belém, we won’t be able to use it.”

The road leaves two disconnected areas of protected forest. Scientists are concerned it will fragment the ecosystem and disrupt the movement of wildlife.

Prof Silvia Sardinha is a wildlife vet and researcher at a university animal hospital that overlooks the site of the new highway.

She and her team rehabilitate wild animals with injuries, predominantly caused by humans or vehicles.

Once healed, they release them back into the wild – something she says will be harder if there is a highway on their doorstep.

“From the moment of deforestation, there is a loss.

“We are going to lose an area to release these animals back into the wild, the natural environment of these species,” she said.

“Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side too, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.”

The Brazilian president and environment minister say this will be a historic summit because it is “a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon”.

The president says the meeting will provide an opportunity to focus on the needs of the Amazon, show the forest to the world, and present what the federal government has done to protect it.

But Prof Sardinha says that while these conversations will happen “at a very high level, among business people and government officials”, those living in the Amazon are “not being heard”.

The state government of Pará had touted the idea of this highway, known as Avenida Liberdade, as early as 2012, but it had repeatedly been shelved because of environmental concerns.

Now a host of infrastructure projects have been resurrected or approved to prepare the city for the COP summit.

Adler Silveira, the state government’s infrastructure secretary, listed this highway as one of 30 projects happening in the city to “prepare” and “modernise” it, so “we can have a legacy for the population and, more importantly, serve people for COP30 in the best possible way”.

Speaking to the BBC, he said it was a “sustainable highway” and an “important mobility intervention”.

He added it would have wildlife crossings for animals to pass over, bike lanes and solar lighting. New hotels are also being built and the port is being redeveloped so cruise ships can dock there to accommodate excess visitors.

Brazil’s federal government is investing more than $81m (£62m) to expand the airport capacity from “seven to 14 million passengers”. A new 500,000 sq-m city park, Parque da Cidade, is under construction. It will include green spaces, restaurants, a sports complex and other facilities for the public to use afterwards.

Some business owners in the city’s vast open-air Ver-o-peso market agree that this development will bring opportunities for the city.

“The city as a whole is being improved, it is being repaired and a lot of people are visiting from other places. It means I can sell more and earn more,” says Dalci Cardoso da Silva, who runs a leather shoe stall.

He says this is necessary because when he was young, Belém was “beautiful, well-kept, well cared for”, but it has since been “abandoned” and “neglected” with “little interest from the ruling class”.

João Alexandre Trindade da Silva, who sells Amazonian herbal medicines in the market, acknowledges that all construction work can cause problems, but he felt the future impact would be worth it.

“We hope the discussions aren’t just on paper and become real actions. And the measures, the decisions taken, really are put into practice so that the planet can breathe a little better, so that the population in the future will have a little cleaner air.”

That will be the hope of world leaders too who choose to attend the COP30 summit.

Scrutiny is growing over whether flying thousands of them across the world, and the infrastructure required to host them, is undermining the cause.

The Santos forward has not featured for the Selecao since sustaining a knee injury against Uruguay in October 2023.

However, after an underwhelming spell at Saudi Pro League side Al-Hilal, he has caught the eye since moving back to his boyhood club in January.

The 33-year-old has registered three goals and three assists in seven appearances in the Brazilian top flight.

Only Cafu (142) has more caps for Brazil than Neymar (128) – who is his country’s record scorer with 79 goals, two more than Pele.

Brazil, who are fifth in the Conmebol table with 18 points from 12 games, host Colombia on 21 March and then visit leaders Argentina five days later.

Liverpool and Manchester City goalkeepers Alisson and Ederson are among an 10-strong contingent of Premier League players included in Dorival Jr’s squad.

Arsenal and Nottingham Forest centre-backs Gabriel and Murillo have also been picked, along with Wolves duo Andre and Matheus Cunha, and Newcastle pair Bruno Guimaraes and Joelinton.

Brighton’s Joao Pedro and Manchester City winger Savinho are among the attacking options.

The 69-year-old was handed five charges over the alleged bid to prevent his successor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office after a bitter election race.

The charges include allegations that he planned to poison Lula and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing and says he is the victim of political persecution.

The prosecutor’s advice will now be considered by the Supreme Court. If accepted, Bolsonaro and 33 others will be formally charged and will have to face trial.

The former president was banned from running for office for eight years after being accused of undermining Brazilian democracy by falsely claiming that electronic ballots used in the October 2022 poll were vulnerable to hacking and fraud.

The bitterly fought election was won by an extremely narrow margin by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – known more commonly as Lula.

Bolsonaro never publicly acknowledged his defeat and left Brazil for the US two days before Lula was sworn in as president.

On 8 January 2023, his supporters stormed government buildings in the capital Brasilia. Parts of the buildings were ransacked and police arrested 1,500 of the rioters.

Three months ago, the federal police released a report accusing Bolsonaro of playing a lead role in planning and organising an attempted coup – including by proposing the idea to key figures in the military – to stop Lula taking power.

The document charging Bolsonaro says the responsibility for acts that were harmful to democratic order lies with a criminal organisation led by Bolsonaro himself.

In practice, this means legal proceedings are beginning and Bolsonaro will likely face a trial.

One of the charges is for the crime of “armed criminal organisation”, allegedly led by Bolsonaro and his vice-presidential candidate Walter Braga Netto.

The alleged plot included a plan to poison Lula and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, one of Bolsonaro’s rivals, Attorney-General Paulo Gonet Branco said.

“Allied with other individuals, including civilians and military personnel, they attempted to prevent, in a coordinated manner, the result of the 2022 presidential elections from being fulfilled,” he said.

Brazilian media reports that the Supreme Court is expected to proceed with the trial later this year.

Reaction to the prosecutor’s decision shows that the divisions that have marked Brazilian politics for the past decade remain as deep as ever.

Government supporters are celebrating and saying the former president belongs in jail, while the opposition insist he’s innocent.

The focus now is on the impact the Supreme Court decision will have on next year’s presidential election. Recent opinion polls show record levels of rejection for President Lula.

Despite being banned from running for office, Bolsonaro remains a strong political force in Brazil and could use the trial as a platform for his agenda.

Deise Moura dos Anjos, 42, had been in pre-trial detention since January after prosecutors accused her of the murder on Christmas Eve of three relatives and the attempted murder of another three.

The victims had all eaten from the cake, which forensic experts found had been baked with flour contaminated with the deadly poison.

Police were also investigating if she may have killed her father-in-law, who died in September.

Forensic experts who exhumed his body found high levels of arsenic, which led them to believe that he, too, had been poisoned.

Moura dos Anjos denied any wrongdoing but local police chief Cléber dos Santos Lima told reporters last month that he was “certain that she researched, bought (…) and used the poison to kill her victims”.

He added that police had found evidence showing that she had bought arsenic on four separate occasions.

Investigators tested many food items in the home of Moura dos Anjos’s mother-in-law, where the six victims were taken ill, in order to find the source of the poisoning.

Eventually, they found sky-high levels or arsenic in the flour – some of which Moura dos Anjos’s mother-in-law, Zeli dos Anjos, had used to bake the Christmas cake.

As Zeli dos Anjos had herself eaten from the cake and was taken seriously ill, police quickly ruled her out as a suspect even though she had prepared the cake.

Zeli dos Anjos survived but two of her sisters and one of her nieces died.

Her 10-year-old grandson and the husband of one of her sisters were also among those poisoned but recovered.

One of Brazil’s greatest footballing exports, and still the world’s most expensive player, has signed a six-month contract that brings him back to Vila Belmiro.

The 32-year-old’s homecoming follows the termination of his contract with Saudi Pro League side Al-Hilal on 27 January, closing the chapter on an injury-plagued and ultimately unfulfilling stint in the Middle East.

“He was desperate to come back to Santos,” said BBC Sport’s Spanish football expert Guillem Balague.

Santos were eager to bring Neymar back too. They reportedly used an AI-generated voice of club legend Pele, external in a video to persuade him to re-sign.

But what will Neymar really bring to Santos?

As Balague said: “Everyone knows where he is now with his relationship to football.”

The relationship has evolved throughout his career, earning Neymar a reputation as ‘the prince who never became king’.

Search for that nickname on TikTok or YouTube and you will find a flood of compilations with videos of Neymar’s best moments.

These are not just highlight reels of goals – there are montages of dazzling dribbles, rainbow flicks, and nutmegs.

A celebration of ‘Joga Bonito’, the Brazilian ethos of ‘playing [football] beautifully’, Neymar’s game encapsulated the spirit of football as art.

Add to that the many hairstyles and the nose tape, his whole aesthetic has enhanced a football culture and lineage that some felt might break when his Brazil counterpart Ronaldinho faded from view.

By the time Neymar left Santos in 2013 for Barcelona, the then 21-year-old had scored 136 goals in 225 appearances, won the 2011 Puskas Award for a breathtaking goal against Flamengo and finished in the top 10 of the Ballon d’Or award in the same year.

Upon his move to Spain, Neymar was perceived by many as the heir apparent, the one who could finally step out of the shadows cast by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

“He’s a lovely person – childlike in many ways – but surrounded by good people, and he loved Barcelona,” Balague said.

Under the bright lights of the Nou Camp, Neymar shone in what many consider one of the greatest forward lines in football history.

In a front three with Messi and Luis Suarez, he helped to deliver two La Liga titles, three Copa del Reys, and a Champions League trophy.

Operating from the left, Neymar occupied a role that allowed his brilliance and flair to flourish.

“He had to play in that position because of Suarez and Messi,” Balague explained.

“At the time, he didn’t realise that being just a left winger would bring out his best.”

In the 2015-16 season, the so-called MSN trio combined for 131 goals and 65 assists, dismantling defences with pace, precision, and audacity.

Neymar was delivering on the biggest stage, but the dream of dethroning his now team-mate Messi to become the world’s best player was looking like just that, a dream. Messi was the untouchable star of the show, with everyone else in a supporting role, even Neymar.

Balague reflected: “The day he realised he had to leave Barcelona was their incredible Champions League comeback victory against Paris St-Germain which finished 6-1 in March 2017.

“He scored two goals and got an assist for the sixth goal, he was the best player on the pitch, but the main photo after was of Messi. He realised he would not be able to be the number one at Barcelona.”

That summer, Neymar swapped his life in Spain for the capital of France.

PSG paid a world-record €222m (£200m) fee that remains unsurpassed to this day.

In Paris, Neymar often operated with more freedom, shifting into a central role where he orchestrated attacks and created from deeper positions.

More freedom on the pitch was coupled with more commercial obligations off it.

“His love for the game was taken from him in Paris, he became an industry,” Balague said.

“In fact, when he was at PSG, his contract said he could dedicate days to training and others to commercial opportunities.

“After that his head started going in different directions. He would play the PlayStation until three in the morning and wouldn’t be able to train properly, but on a matchday he would come out with something genius.”

Neymar’s time in Paris delivered multiple domestic titles, but it lacked the defining European triumph PSG wanted.

The closest they came was the 2020 Champions League final, with a 1-0 loss to Bayern Munich in which the Brazilian played the full 90 minutes.

Although Neymar’s individual brilliance flashed at times, injuries and off-field distractions defined much of his time in Paris.

Tensions grew, too, as the arrival of Kylian Mbappe and previous team-mate Lionel Messi complicated Neymar’s role in the team.

Speaking on a podcast with Brazil legend Romario,, external Neymar said: “I have my things with Kylian Mbappe. We fought a little, but he was fundamental for us. I always helped him, talked to him, but when Messi came, he got a little jealous.”

Injuries compounded Neymar’s frustrations, with his last game coming during the 2022-23 season before ankle surgery ruled him out for the rest of the campaign.

In August 2023, at the age of 31, Neymar joined Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia on a reported €150m (£129m) annual deal.

That amounted to about six times the salary he had been paid in France.

But misfortune followed Neymar to Saudi, with a serious knee injury while playing for Brazil sidelining him for much of his stint in the emerging league.

He played just seven games for the Saudi club.

“His objective was to stay with Al-Hilal for another six months and play in the Club World Cup this summer,” said South American football expert Tim Vickery on BBC Radio 5 Live.

“That was supposed to be a huge billboard to the football world that said: ‘I’m back baby.’

He’s back all right – but back in Brazil. Neymar has returned to a Santos who have just been promoted back to Brazil’s top league.

Should he stay fit, Neymar’s presence could prove invaluable not only for Santos but also for Brazil’s national team – who he last represented in October 2023, when the ACL in his left knee ruptured against Uruguay.

Despite overtaking Pele to become Brazil’s record scorer, Neymar might have had an even better international career but for injuries.

He sat out the semi-final of the 2014 World Cup in Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s successful 2019 Copa America campaign and two out of five games in the 2022 World Cup.

As young stars like Vinicius Jr and Rodrygo continue to blossom, Brazil could be among the favourites for the 2026 World Cup. But Neymar’s experience and flair would still offer something unique if he can stay healthy.

Neymar is an inspiration to this generation’s hottest young stars, with Barcelona’s teenage winger Lamine Yamal having posed in a Santos shirt bearing the superstar’s name.

“He is loved by players and is Yamal’s hero because he did things no other players could,” said Balague.

The ‘prince’ may not have quite claimed the throne, but his influence on football culture persists.

And perhaps there is one last defining chapter of the Neymar story still to be told.

Here we have a footballer, not yet a veteran, with the talent to take himself, his club and his country to the very top – a regal talent still targeting a coronation moment.

After Messi’s World Cup crowning in Qatar, don’t count out Neymar in the United States just yet.

The 32-year-old Brazil international is expected to sign a short-term deal at the club where he began his career.

The termination of his contract at Al-Hilal was considered the biggest step, according to sources close to Neymar.

It ends an injury-hit spell in Saudi Arabia, where he played just seven times for the club he joined in a £77.6m deal in August 2023.

The attacker made two appearances this season, most recently a substitute in November.

Al Hilal said: “The club expresses its thanks and appreciation to Neymar for what he has provided at Al-Hilal, and wish the player success in his career.”

Major League Soccer club Chicago Fire also attempted to bring Neymar to the United States but he turned them down in favour of returning to Santos.

Fire had Neymar on their ‘discovery list’, meaning they were the only MLS team able to negotiate with him in the US.

Inter Miami had also been linked with reuniting Neymar with his former Barcelona team-mates Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez.

Neymar remains the world’s most expensive footballer after his £200m move to Paris St-Germain in 2017.

Neymar had around seven months remaining on his contract, having joined Al-Hilal on a two-year deal with a reported wage of 150m euros (£129.2m) a year.

He joined claiming he wanted to “write new sporting history” but had a prolonged spell on the sidelines after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament during Brazil’s World Cup qualifier against Uruguay in October 2023.

He returned in October last year and although he played down an apparent hamstring issue in his second match back, he has not featured since.

Neymar came through the famed youth system at Santos, where he scored 136 goals in 225 games, before a high-profile move to Barcelona in 2013.

He made 186 appearances across four seasons in Spain, winning two La Liga titles, the Champions League and the Club World Cup before his world-record move to PSG as a 25-year-old.

In Paris he won five league titles prior to his move to Saudi Arabia.

Shortly after the move he overtook Pele to become Brazil’s all-time leading male goalscorer with 78 goals, but has not played for his country since his initial knee injury in 2023.

Footage of one of Janaína Lima’s employees hauling away the facilities was posted online as her tenure as Sao Paulo councilwoman ended.

“I decided to donate the equipment I acquired with my own resources to the chamber,” she said in statement on X, following a social media backlash.

“Obviously, neither I nor my advisers need a toilet.”

CCTV cameras caught employees in her office removing the facilities that were installed when she took office eight years ago.

In a statement posted on social media, Lima said the bathroom renovation was paid for with her own money and therefore not an asset belonging to the council.

Lima said she had followed the guidance of the legal department, that had indicated that all personally installed resources should be removed.

She told Brazilian media outlet G1 the hydraulics in the building are “sensitive”.

She added that other fixtures she had bought for the office – such as a glass partition and industrial-style light fittings – would remain in place for her successor.

Lima served as a counsellor for the New Party until 1 January.

The 41-year-old lost her position to Adrilles Jorge, of the Brazilian Labour Party, in the 2024 elections.

At his inauguration on Monday, Jorge quipped to G1 that his team would “use a communal potty” until the situation is resolved.

“I visited the office and thought the architecture was brilliant. But she took everything out,” he said.

“They even took out the toilet and the sink. She didn’t say [that she was going to take them out]. And it’s something that neither she would say, nor would I ask.

“The new president of the House, Ricardo Teixeira said “appropriate measures” would be taken.

The highly toxic substance was also identified in the blood test results of a 10-year-old boy and the woman who made the cake – both of whom are still in hospital.

Five members of the same family fell ill after eating the cake at a gathering in Torres, in the southern Rio Grande do Sul state, on Monday afternoon.

Police have sent the cake for testing, and said several out-of-date food items were also found during a search at the woman’s house. They added that it is not yet clear whether the suspected poisoning was intentional.

Test results from the cake are expected to be available by next week, according to local media.

On Friday, police requested for the body of a man – the late husband of the woman who made the cake – to be exhumed. He died in September from food poisoning, but police said his death was deemed natural at the time.

She is not considered a suspect in either of these cases at this time, and investigations are ongoing.

Six out of seven people at the Christmas celebration ate the cake on Monday afternoon, including the woman who baked it.

Police told Brazilian broadcasters that she is the only one believed to have eaten two slices of her homemade cake, and her tests returned the highest levels of arsenic.

Speaking to local media, police chief Marcos Vinicius Veloso said some of the family members complained that the cake had a “peppery” taste.

The family then began to experience symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhoea, and five of them sought medical help at the Nossa Senhora dos Navegantes Hospital at around 01:00 local time (04:00 GMT) on Tuesday.

Hours later, two sisters died from cardiac arrest, the hospital said. They have been named in local media as Maida Berenice Flores da Silva, 58, and Tatiana Denize Silva dos Santos, 43.

The third victim, whose blood test presented traces of arsenic, died later on Tuesday evening from “shock after food poisoning”, the hospital said.

She has been named locally as 65-year-old Neuza Denize Silva dos Anjos.

Arsenic is a metallic element that occurs naturally.

Its inorganic form is highly toxic and classified as a category one carcinogen by the EU – meaning it’s known to cause cancer in humans.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), people are exposed to elevated levels of inorganic arsenic through drinking contaminated water or using it in food preparation, as well as irrigation of crops, industrial processes and smoking tobacco.

Because arsenic exists in soil, small amounts can get into food, though in general these levels are so low that they are not considered a cause for concern.It is also used, albeit in limited cases, in pesticides and pharmaceuticals.

Four people are known to have died, and more than 10 are missing after the central span of the bridge linking Tocantins and Maranhão states gave way on Sunday afternoon.

It is not clear if or how much the chemicals have leaked from their containers, but diving operations in the river have been halted while the situation is assessed.

Dramatic video filmed by a local councillor who went to the bridge to draw attention to cracks in it showed the start of the collapse.

Councillor Elias Junior said he never expected the bridge to actually collapse when he was there and was “in shock”.

Eight vehicles plunged into the river, including the three lorries containing chemicals.People in the cities of Estreito and Aguiarnopolis, on either side of the river, have been told to avoid collecting water from it.

Rescue operations are being carried out from boats. Four bodies have been recovered, including the female driver of one of the trucks and an 11-year-old girl, the fire service said. One man was rescued alive from the water on Sunday.

The Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira bridge – which is more than half a kilometre (1,600ft) long – was built in the 1960s and is the main link between the two states across the Tocantins river.